7 things about technology that an ageing charity might need to know

Last week I gave a talk to the board of Helpage International, a large, very global ageing charity. I had a ‘simple’ brief. Talk to a very varied board – with members from Sri Lanka, USA, Latin America, India, Sri Lanka etc etc) about some of the technology developments that could, should or will impact their work in the future. And try to do this in 20 minutes. I just about managed it. The 20 minute bit that is.
Of course, in a world driven along breezily by Moore’s Law much is changing, rapidly and even though culture and social practice sometime lag behind often, talking about technology change is really talking about social change.
I made a very difficult cut to bring my talk down to 7 key ideas and tried to flesh those out with a few slides. I raced along. I made some obvious ommisions – such as Skype and basic mobile phones penetration in the developing world – and spoke mainly, if consciously, to more developed world technology innovation.
Anyway, these weaknesses and omissions aside, the audience seemed to like and find it useful. So that’s good. I gather they’re putting the video up somewhere. Even if I find it I probably won’t link to it so here’s some slides instead.