From the Fall 2017 issue of UNCG Research Magazine
Contemplating how the newest technologies might improve the lives of individuals in developing nations is not a theoretical exercise for Nir Kshetri, a professor in UNCG’s Bryan School of Business and Economics.
Dr. Kshetri, an authority on how digital technologies might be applied to improve the economic well-being of some of the world’s poorest people, grew up in a village in eastern Nepal, near Mount Everest. He knows the challenges of living in a place that lacks much of the governmental and financial infrastructure taken for granted in the industrialized world.
Consider blockchain, for instance. The heady technology, originally developed for cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, is currently a focus of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Like Kshetri, the Gates Foundation sees this secure, digital mechanism as a means to improve millions of lives.
Blockchain, Kshetri explains, might be used to maintain land ownership records in places where Western-style deeds never existed. The information, stored on Internet-connected computers and accessed via smartphone, would be available to anyone. But the data could only be changed by the property owner or an assignee with access to the digital key for that specific record.
One of the thorniest challenges facing developing countries in the coming decade “is the registration of property,” Kshetri says. “It’s a big issue.”
Blockchain also has applications for identification and personal finance. “In Nepal, people have to show at least four different documents to open a bank account,” Kshetri says. “It is almost impossible for them to participate in any type of formal banking activities.”
