Our Theory of Change

Pressing Challenges

Rural and urban communities across Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and beyond are facing pressing challenges affecting their livelihoods, including:

⋅ Urgent ecological challenges such as soil erosion, flooding, seasonal droughts, as well as barriers to conservation efforts and forest management.
⋅ Mounting humanitarian challenges, including more frequent and powerful floods, hurricanes, soaring temperatures and droughts.
⋅ A slew of public health threats including pandemics and the lack of timely access to essential medicines, testing and other related services.

However, extreme inequality, social injustice, and entrenched discrimination are hindering humanitarian and development efforts, exacerbating the pandemic,
and hampering climate change solutions.

The Problem with Technology

For years, the application of technology to these pressing challenges – “Technology for Good” – has been entrenched in foreign-led, top-down and techno-centric approaches. Across the sectors, foreign experts are routinely parachuting into humanitarian disasters, health crises, and more with emerging technologies, while affected communities are expected to be passive observers.

What about Local Experts?

Local experts do not benefit from knowledge exchange, knowledge transfer, and, most importantly, the opportunity to lead in the efforts affecting their own communities.

Opportunities

Rural and urban communities and governments at all levels across Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and beyond have the ability, agency, and deep local expertise to tackle the urgent ecological, humanitarian, agricultural, and environmental challenges affecting their livelihoods in a sustainable and innovative manner. And local experts with lived experience know best how to create positive social impact effectively and sustainably in their communities.

By focusing on equitable use of emerging technologies and investing in local experts, new ways of thinking and working that have historically been hindered can be unlocked, resulting in exponentially greater positive social impact and economic opportunity.

Providing an Abundance of Solutions with The Power of Local

The challenges facing our world today are immense, and need to be addressed with an abundance of solutions. Local, decentralized, and bottom-up approaches that center the inclusion of local experts can activate this abundance, multiplying the actors working for positive change. Our work inverts traditional value systems by promoting local experts and co-creating the conditions for them to thrive in the spaces from which they are often excluded.

By working collaboratively with local experts and organizations, WeRobotics and the Flying Labs Network amplify impact while simultaneously contributing to systems innovation. Learn more on our approach on the homepage.

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