Technology Makes the World a Better Place

We live in an age of technological upheaval. With all the good that may bring, it also has a few drawbacks—phone addiction, robots replacing jobs, data hacks to name a few. But anyone with a smartphone today has access to more information and media than the wealthiest person alive 30 years ago. And that’s a good thing.

Here are some of the ways technology is improving our world:

Health

Advancement in technology has reached into nearly every corner of health and wellbeing, leading to potentially better selfcare, patient care, and overall health outcomes.

Wearable technology has been mainstream for a long time. In fact, the demand to monitor our own health by the use of wearable technology has more than tripled in the last four years. There are many benefits including encouraging proactive health care, remote patient monitoring, and patient care becoming more personalized.
Robot surgeons assist human physicians in performing operations, preventing failures, and minimizing the impact on the patient—thus reducing recovery times.
Virtual nursing has patients using Internet of Things (IoT) technology to relay data on their health to medical staff, without having to set foot in a hospital. This is more convenient for all involved, but it also means that the patient’s vitals can be reviewed far more frequently, providing a far fuller picture of their condition.
Diagnosis is also being enhanced by technology, both on the micro and the macro scale. For example, Congenica created a platform to analyze genomic information, helping practitioners to treat patients with genetic diseases. Meanwhile, the increased quantity of available medical data makes it easier for practitioners to understand wellbeing on a society-wide level and to identify factors that correlate with disease and ill health.
Blockchain has multiple potential applications, like allowing patients to quickly, easily, and securely share a medical record with their doctor—and securing the supply chain, making a permanent record of the constituent ingredients in an item, flagging counterfeit products, and automatically voiding improperly stored units via IoT integration.

Social

From socioeconomics to politics to vital social dialogues, technology has enabled upward mobility and opened doors for in-depth discussions about current movements, allowing everyone to be part of the conversation.

Poverty: The accessibility of online markets and digital services has lowered barriers to creating a business, hence empowering many. At the almost-literal grassroots level, Digital Green helps smallholder farmers work together and to share their knowledge to improve their lives.
Politics: In the modern era, social media has fueled an age of protest, targeting corruption and wrongdoing. Equally, services like TheyWorkForYou provide transparency into the political process and on precisely what our elected representatives are doing. Meanwhile, UReport provides a global platform, allowing individuals to speak up on issues that are important to them and their communities.
Sexual harassment: Digital platforms have been hosting conversations about sexual inequality and abuse—after all, MeToo and TimesUp couldn’t have happened without social media. HarassMap goes a step further by allowing individuals to tag cases of sexual harassment on a map.

Crisis

As media has made us more aware of disasters around the world, it has also provided a platform for communication allowing those affected to receive or enable assistance quicker than ever.

Connect and donate: Modern communications make it faster and easier to contact individuals in a disaster, and to assess and coordinate disaster relief. Facebook has been particularly notable in this field, with its Safety Check feature—allowing individuals to confirm their safety with a click for their entire network—and with features that make it easy to donate via crisis pages, with funds distributed by GlobalGiving.
Resilient communications: Organizations like Bridgefy are working to provide mesh networks that allow devices to stay in communication without internet access, helping populations and governments to cope with damaged infrastructure.

Environment

Technology is bringing cutting edge solutions to some of the world’s biggest environmental crises.

Animals: Climate change is impacting wildlife and animals, often negatively. But we’ve demonstrated that we can reverse the extinction of the Iberian Lynx with sensors and camera traps and use bots and drones to speed up evolution to save the Great Barrier Reef.
Ocean clean-up: We’re increasingly aware of the vast amount of waste in our oceans and the harmful effect it has on aquatic life. Something that may combat this is Seabin, an invention that works much like a fish tank’s water filtration system and sucks in oil and pollution. It’s a big task, but if widely deployed, Seabin could make a difference that extends beyond just cleaner water.
Pollinating drone: Bees are important for plant pollination. However, these insects have been dying in vast numbers. While entomologists study how to save the bees, technology has come up with a fanciful solution to help—using microdrones to artificially pollinate plants, and thereby securing the food supply.
Flood sensors: With the prospect of an increasingly unpredictable climate and rising tides, technology—including enhanced weather forecasting and monitoring by IoT sensors—can help to alert the public to danger. Flood Network, for example, works to predict and track flood conditions, helping responders deal with crisis situations as they happen.

This post is a celebration of the good things we can achieve with technology. From better patient care to addressing the effects of climate change, technology can work to find and implement solutions to make the world a better place. We hope it inspires you to partner with 10Pearls to make the world a better place.

Using technology for good

From our founding in 2004, 10Pearls has been committed to enriching communities. We believe in much more than digital and corporate growth to contribute positively to society: doing good while doing well through volunteer events, free courses, and program sponsorships that focus on building a better world for women, children, and the disabled. Learn more about the practical ways we use technology to give back to our employees and the communities we serve around the world.