Putting technology at the service of the common good? Yes, it is possible and it is the aim of this young sector of Tech & Science for Good. As France is one of the most prolific countries in Europe in terms of digital startup creation, it seems natural that Tech for Good sector has been on an upward trend in recent years. Its rapid development can also be explained by its very wide coverage of fields of activity, offering many entrepreneurial opportunities such as professional integration, education, health and many others.

It should be noted that the Tech for Good sector is not for the private preserve of the Social and Solidarity Economy stakeholders and aims to expand its ecosystem towards large Tech companies. Indeed, the objective is to impact practices, as highlighted by the Tech for Good summit organized by the French president last May, which brought together all Tech’s global leaders. It is under these conditions that the 11^th edition of Forum Convergences proposed to some of these actors to express themselves on their solutions and their future perspectives for Tech for Good in France and abroad.

An ecosystem in transition for Science & Tech for Good in France

Tech for Good was until recently a very fragmented sector with many players. This observation led to the creation of the France Eco-Social Tech movement (FEST), which today aims to unite all actors in scientific and technological innovation around the Sustainable Development Goals. From now on, FEST proposes a new approach by bringing together all the fields of activity belonging to the Tech & Science for Good, in order to make the sector a single and unique community inclined to develop synergies and encourage the sharing of experiences. It is an opportunity for all ecosystem stakeholders (entrepreneurs, incubators, investment funds, etc.) to be represented and to have the opportunity to make concrete proposals to public and private institutions. Such an initiative is likely to enable the construction of a solid ecosystem for the years to come and thus make Tech for Good a major economic player in France.

Digital technology is both an opportunity and a hindrance because it is unequally distributed. It must be “adoptable”. It is a tool to link individual initiatives and give them a much larger scope. Digital technology makes it possible, for example, to develop multiactivity for people who do not want to give up skills in the salary work. We must bring out an inclusive digital that protects all.

A sector that tends to develop towards multi-stakeholder initiatives

This transversal working methodology gives rise to many initiatives in the direction of sectoral cooperation. MakeSense, through its “Future of Waste energy for climate” programme, aims to build an online community to identify innovations or good practices around the world and argues that “No one has the solution alone”. In the field of science, Soscience offers meetings entitled “The Future of [theme]”, events bringing together NGOs, companies and researchers with the aim of creating transversal collaborations monitored over time by Soscience.

Finally, Entourage association, represented by Jean-Marc Potdevin, reminds us that it is essential to operate in an ecosystem. According to him, if one thing is certain, it is that it is the citizen who will reinvent commitment, whether through volunteer work or associations, the only questions are where, when and how. By launching a mobile application with more than 4,300 outreach actions with street people Entourage considers it necessary to have a platform to centralize NGO actions and volunteer availability. This first action by Entourage made it possible to observe an important innovation in terms of mobilizing the actors.

As Jean-Marc Potdevin rightly points out: “We don’t operate on an economic model like Wikipedia”. In other words, most Tech for Good organizations do not rely on private donations. The question of financing this ecosystem arises and it now seems essential to have a multi-stakeholder approach in a consortium. Indeed, it is the diversity of funding that will make the strength of both funders and beneficiaries. Following the example of the Fondation de France, which supports social innovation in all fields and supports initiatives and risk-taking in this field (50 initiatives supported so far). It aims to support projects that apply new inclusive, “empowering” economic models rooted in their territory.

Digital technology, a tool for the convergence of actors in developing countries.

The challenges of Tech for Good are multiple and take very different forms depending on the socio-economic contexts of the regions where we want to develop innovative technological services. As actors are located in developing countries, they regularly face operational problems. The most recurrent issue concerns data and the principle of respect for the rights of the individual. The data covers key strategic issues in the sense that it is now considered as “the black gold of the 21^st century”. This is especially true in developing countries if we consider that the implementation of public policies is still complex. There are even some countries where public statistics are almost non-existent. In order to overcome this lack of public policy and to initiate new ones, Tech for Good proposes innovative projects around data collection and management. For example, very often in African countries where less than 15% of GDP comes from mining, the first item is telecoms. Where a private company is struggling to find profitability in the energy sector in rural Africa, Sunna Design is launching Moon an innovative project to sell energy access kits and semi-closed smartphones with content on education, health etc.

In another area, Isahit, a socially responsible internet platform for outsourcing digital projects, is opening up digital jobs to women, with 500 new jobs created in 11 countries on the whole. An initiative that responds to cross-cutting issues such as the integration of women into the workforce and the provision of banking services through the acquisition of smartphones. Indeed, this allows a significant step forward in terms of inclusion through the empowerment of their income management.

The main challenge for all these structures is now the change of scale and digital technology offers tools to meet this challenge. Always with the aim of creating multi-stakeholder partnerships, Afrobytes has developed a BtoB Marketplace, thus creating bridges between the ecosystem of African Tech companies and the rest of the world. These exchanges regularly give rise to meetings in Paris, always with the objective of creating collaborations with the French and international Tech for Good sector.

The Micro-Projects Agency, for its part, is working on the restructuring of digital ecosystems in developing countries through its platform for submitting applications and providing online support for local projects. This initiative promotes co-financing between donors as well as meetings with donors and project leaders.

The implementation of these measures regularly encounters obstacles preventing the development of digital technology in some regions. First, competition between different actors such as donors and NGOs makes data sharing very complex. In addition, the lack of understanding of policies on the potential of technologies and the mistrust of users towards the public sector pushes companies to turn to the private sector and thus neglects the creation of public policies.

It is also necessary to compensate for the lack of training in tools: Sunna Design must, for example, provide training in their shops in the field, education is now an integral part of their services. Isahit has set up a partnership with Open Classroom to help young women who are not “digital natives” to move from digital as a communication tool to a work tool. Great progress has been made thanks to digitization, but there is still a strong urban-rural divide in many countries today, making it difficult to deploy technologies.