The world is both eager and anxious to predict the economic and social effects of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and automation. While concerns of job loss in the Global North dominate much of the conversation, what will these technologies mean for the future of low- and middle-income countries? The traditional path to development has centered on urban industrialization and access to markets, where wealth creation led to a virtuous cycle of access to higher-quality education and healthcare. Leaders across sectors will explore where we are today, what’s ahead, and how to navigate this rapidly changing landscape.
Director, Development Policy and Finance, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Gargee Ghosh leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s international policy team as Director of Development Policy & Finance. The team develops and funds innovative ideas to make finance more effective in solving the problems of extreme poverty around the world. The team also oversees Gates Foundation relationships with multilateral development banks, aid policy bodies, and economic decision-makers in the developing world. Gargee previously held senior positions at Google.org and in the international development practice of McKinsey & Company, as well as at the Center for Global Development. She has also worked in the Gates Foundation’s Global Health division, where she helped launch the Foundation’s first significant blended finance deals. Gargee recently completed a two-year term on President Obama’s Global Development Council and she sits on the U.S. board of Camfed. She holds a graduate degree in economics from the University of Oxford and in international relations from Georgetown University, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Victoria in Canada. She is based in the Foundation’s Washington, D.C. office where she lives with her husband and two young children.
Maryana Iskander has served as Chief Executive Officer of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator since 2013. She brings a track record of scaling organisations through partnership models, data-driven delivery, talent management and technology innovation. Harambee has partnered with over 500 African businesses in South Africa and Rwanda and provided over 175,000 jobs and work experiences to unemployed youth. In 2019, Maryana led Harambee to receive the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the Concious Companies Award.
Previously, she served as Chief Operating Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a US$1 billion organisation that is America’s largest provider of women’s healthcare. Maryana was an associate at global consultancy McKinsey & Company, and a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
She earned a B.A. magna cum laude from Rice University, an M.Sc. from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she received a Distinguished Alumna Award. Maryana is a Henry Crown Fellow and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She also serves on the board of World Education Services, a leading institution in the field of education and professional development.
Terah Lyons is the founding Executive Director of the Partnership on AI, a multistakeholder nonprofit initiative focused on advancing the benefits and addressing the challenges of machine intelligence founded by Amazon, Apple, DeepMind, Facebook, Google, IMB, and Microsoft. She is a former Policy Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and a Mozilla Foundation Technology Policy Fellow. In her capacity at the White House, Terah led a policy portfolio in the Obama Administration focused on machine intelligence, including AI, robotics, and intelligent transportation systems. In her work at OSTP, she helped establish and direct the White House Future of Artificial Intelligence Initiative, oversaw robotics policy and regulatory matters, led the Administration’s work from the White House on civil and commercial unmanned aircraft systems/drone integration into the U.S. airspace system, and advised on Federal automated vehicles policy. She also advised on issues related to diversity and inclusion in the technology industry and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Prior to her work at the White House, Terah was a Fellow with the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences based in Cape Town, South Africa. She previously worked with David Gergen at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Center for Public Leadership examining leadership and U.S. politics, and with Amy Kaslow working to chronicle domestic and international economic reconstruction, poverty, and contemporary conflict and genocide. She is a graduate of Harvard University.
Professor of Economic Policy, Blavatnik School of Government
Stefan Dercon is Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department, and a Fellow of Jesus College. He is also Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies.
Between 2011 and 2017, he was Chief Economist of the Department of International Development (DFID), the government department in charge with the UK’s aid policy and spending. In this position, he provided strategic advice, and was responsible for ensuring the use of evidence in decision making.
Before joining the University of Oxford, he held positions at the University of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), the Catholic University of Leuven, and WIDER (Helsinki), part of the United Nations University.
His research interests concern what keeps some people and countries poor: the failures of markets, governments and politics, mainly in Africa, and how to achieve change. Current research work focuses on the psychological challenges of poverty, the political economy of development, the challenges of industrialisation in Africa, the challenges and opportunities of new technologies, and how to organise and finance responses to natural disasters and protracted humanitarian crises.
His latest book, “Dull Disasters? How Planning Ahead Will Make A Difference” was published in 2016, and provides a blueprint for renewed application of science, improved decision making, better preparedness, and pre-arranged finance in the face of natural disasters.
He is a Fellow of BREAD, a Research Fellow of CEPR and of IZA, and an Affiliate of J-PAL He studied economics and philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and holds an MPhil and DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford.
