Funding solutions to world problems
Early in his career, Alex Dehgan spent three years living in a tent in Madagascar and studying lemurs, the furry, bug-eyed mammals made popular by the animated film "Madagascar."
[...] Dehgan is overseeing an ambitious push by the government to fight poverty, hunger, water shortages and other international humanitarian problems through new technology.
Among the agency's Silicon Valley partners is the Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment firm founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam, which is helping to underwrite some of its initiatives.
The USAID is also pumping $20 million into UC Berkeley to create an engineering lab that will design and develop new technology, such as mobile apps that could improve health care or provide clean water in the developing world.
[...] it has dedicated $25 million to Stanford, along with partners Tulane University and Makerere University in Uganda, to develop ways to make African communities more resilient to challenges such as civil conflict and disease.
During a recent trip to the Bay Area, Dehgan discussed how the USAID is tapping into the region's technology sector.
Couple that with energy demands, climate change, environmental degradation, water scarcity issues - these are pretty wicked problems.
Very simply it is acting as a fund to provide opportunities for people to take on some of these problems.
What we find is there is plenty of money out there for people to invest in developed world situations, but many of those technologies could be adapted or applied to address problems in the developing world.
When I was given the chance to help write the transition papers for the new administration, I was able to think about how to re-empower this agency using the power of science and technology.
If we can develop a device, for instance, that is a cell phone-based microscope that allows us to detect malaria and tuberculosis at low price points, then not only can we solve problems abroad, but we can also reduce health care costs in the United States.
Chief scientist, head of the Office of Science and Technology, U.S. Agency for International Development.