If it took the digital high road, life in Haiti would improve dramatically

Least developed countries (LDCs) like Haiti (even more than India and Afghanistan) can potentially be the biggest beneficiaries if they took the digital route out of poverty.

Professor Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, quotes an interesting statistic from Pantelis Koutroumpis of Imperial College London. Nine hundred million people live in LDCs; only 6.7 per cent are Internet users but almost 60% of them use a mobile phone.

“They could profit from smartphones with simple adaptations that can be used in a range of health-screening tests,” suggests Professor Lomborg. The results could be sent straight to hospitals for an immediate response, he adds.

And then the Internet could provide educational material and improve schooling and enable real time, on-demand transport services for remote areas, he suggests.

These are pretty viable suggestions. Someone should listen to Professor Lomborg.