Positive Disruption: Health and Education in a Digital Age

This report sets out a vision for how developing countries can significantly improve their health and education systems by making effective use of data-driven technology. It examines the potential benefits of these technologies, and offers guidance on how to achieve change. Service delivery in developing countries is notoriously complex, and this report does not shy away from the many failures of technology. But with this dose of realism, we maintain that digitally enabled technology has the potential to create more effective, efficient and equitable health and education systems by looking beyond the clinic and the classroom, to transform the underlying decisionmaking, management and administrative apparatus. This report describes the necessary digital building blocks to realise this vision, and provides a set of principles to help make digital technology a positive disruptor, rather than just a distraction to policymakers.