The U.S. government’s chief technology officer has a simple piece of advice for anyone working in development. “The key thing if you want to add tech,” Megan Smith said in an interview at Devex World, “go and find people and get them on your team.”
For too long, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and aid agencies have thought of technologists as outsiders — people to bring in for specific tasks. Instead, she suggests, get data and other tech specialists involved at the ground level, and new innovations may result.
That means thinking about technology as a “what” but rather as, “who’s missing from my team who knows this subject fluently,” she said.
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About the author
Elizabeth Dickinson@dickinsonbeth
Elizabeth Dickinson is a former associate editor at Devex. Based in the Middle East, she has previously served as Gulf correspondent for The National, assistant managing editor at Foreign Policy, and Nigeria correspondent at The Economist. Her writing also appeared in The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Politico Magazine, and Newsweek, among others.
