Reaching the summit

What's the first thing you do when you wake up? Hit the snooze button? Turn on the lights, check your phone, stumble into the shower? Imagine none of that being possible. Imagine waking up in the dark with nothing to turn on. No lights, no hot water, no electricity. That's the reality roughly three billion people face every day.

And that's why more than 140 leaders from all over the world are meeting in New York this week, to determine whether it's possible to achieve the goals set out at the beginning of the millennium. Goals like halving poverty, combating disease, reducing child mortality, ensuring universal primary school education and environmental sustainability - all in the next five years.

The UN summit to discuss the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reminds us that we live in a world of extreme contrasts. A world in which concepts like 3D holograms, artificial intelligence and talking robots share a stage with people whose existences resemble those of a century ago.

When you live embedded in a culture of 24/7 technology, with access to information and communication anytime, anywhere, it's easy to forget that a vast number of people have never even heard a dial tone.

How to marry this dizzying evolution of computing power, speed and scope with the enormous shortages in food, sanitation, education and healthcare? While technology has made life easier for many of us by integrating work and play, and boosting flexibility, efficiency and productivity, it has failed many of those who need its gateway capabilities most.

Here's the thing about the MDGs: with five years to go, they are still very much goals, and rather formidable ones, given our progress so far.There have been bright spots of progress in certain areas, but these are overshadowed by broad stretches of failure.

As noted by the US AID administrator during a recent speech in Washington, what has been done is nowhere near enough. “Based on current progress, we will not achieve the MDGs by 2015 if we continue down our current path. That's not conjecture, that's statistical fact. What has worked in the past will not sustain us in the future.”

It's not the first or last time we've heard this message, and it's one that demands working on current problems, while preparing for those still on the horizon - something modern technology has enabled us to become pretty good at.

The leaps in Internet and mobile technology means it's possible for solutions to spread from the bottom up, shaped by the immediate context and needs of the societies using them. The speed and accessibility that ICTs offer are the very things developing communities need to cope with daily, critical problems, like finding the nearest clinic or fresh water source.

With mobile emerging as the tech star of the 21st century, it's possible for billions to gain access to a world of information, even in places far from cities or infrastructure. The UN stresses that while villages may not have running water or electricity, usually at least one person has access to a cellphone. Soon, 90% of the world's population will be within the coverage of wireless networks.

As devices and connectivity become cheaper, technology can and must be used to ensure clean, safe and sustainable conditions for as many as possible. Otherwise, the next set of challenges brought about by environmental degradation and climate change will quickly erode any progress made.

Technology has joined the ranks of other 'basic rights'.

Lezette Engelbrecht, Copy editor and journalist, ITWeb

While donations and relief grants are helpful, the global recession served as a harsh reminder that handouts can dry up very suddenly. Long-term solutions have to come from innovation adapted to local needs and leveraging technology that is available to provide essentials like food, healthcare and clean water.

Two things that underpin the ability to create and sustain functioning societies are education and communication, and this, more than anything, is where technology can play a starring role. It provides a way of eroding the chains of dependency, restoring to people the right and responsibility to run their own lives. Take the enterprising spaza shop owner from rural Limpopo, who wowed Cebit attendees this year by using her cellphone to order new stock.

Using technology doesn't have to involve extensive infrastructure and training - it's as simple as a new mother sending an SMS to get information on infant nutrition, or a farmer using his cellphone to find out future crop prices.

Simple, but relevant, innovation is already changing the lives of many in developing economies. In Senegal, for example, technology is being used to help 93% of the population gain access to improved drinking water. By setting up systems at village level, which incorporate cellphones into monitoring, such as reporting a broken pump, Senegal has been able to keep water points functioning optimally.

Something of a milestone was reached recently, when technology joined the ranks of other 'basic rights'. The International Telecommunication Union secretary-general Hamadoun Tour'e declared broadband a vital component of social development, and key to helping get the MDGs back on track.

“In the 21st century, affordable, ubiquitous broadband networks will be as critical to social and economic prosperity as networks such as transport, water and power,” he said.

This past weekend, the Broadband Commission delivered a report to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, proposing universal access to broadband, and challenging leaders to ensure more than half of the world's people have access to high-speed networks by 2015, as a basic civil right.

But as the UN Summit is likely to reveal, it's not an easy climb that lies ahead. In truth, there are several peaks we have to reach simultaneously, with each summit seemingly growing higher every day, and a fair share of uncertain terrain in between. But if this millennium has proved anything so far, it is our ability to adapt - rapidly and extensively - to greater complexity.

Often, this has been through leveraging equally complex systems to harness the knowledge we have gained, and predict challenges we haven't anticipated. Looking back, let it not be said that we used this increasing technological ability to advance artificial life, thrilling as it may be, at the expense of looking after the very basic needs of our fellow human beings.