“Technology is the easy part,” Poole says. “Technology can make a difference, but by no means is it the only issue. Economic issues can dwarf technology…The thing I know the most is the creation of technology that can sell on a global scale. You need to have things like training and the right kind of software and support infrastructure for selling, and post-sale support, and distribution, and connectivity. Then there’s the social change involved in people becoming comfortable buying things on the Internet.”
A good example, Poole says, is NComputing’s approach versus that of One Laptop Per Child (which Xconomy recently profiled here). “While [Nicholas] Negroponte was doing a wonderful job of evangelizing the use of technology to improve education, he woefully underestimated the complexity of moving that technology from a factory in Taiwan to a school in a remote area of Latin America,” says Poole. “What NComputing did is go ahead and build the technology, but also the distribution channel, in local schools or governments, and provided a profitable way to get it installed and deployed. That’s happening at scale with NComputing, and not happening at scale with OLPC. A functional distribution channel and profit model is absolutely imperative to deploy technology to schools.”
(This also sounds a lot like the concern of Seattle-based PATH CEO Chris Elias, who worries about what he calls the “innovation pile-up” of new drugs and vaccines in the developing world that won’t get used until distribution channels get fixed, as Luke reported last week.)
Poole says he’s planning to work with five specific entities in 2009. Two of them are booked already—NComputing, plus what he would only describe as a “stealth-mode green startup.” He’s looking to pick up two or three more. “Those can be anything from an early-stage startup to one operating at scale, to a nonprofit. I’m casting a very broad net,” he says.
Which is where Seattle-area Web 2.0 companies enter the picture. “I’ve identified startups that have done Web 2.0 for the developed market. But if we apply it in this market, we could solve a big problem in the middle or bottom of the pyramid in India and China.” Poole says he’s looking closely at two companies in Seattle, and will be ready to announce his involvement by summertime. “I’m looking for really innovative entrepreneurs to deliver on both social and technology [fronts],” he says, adding that he’ll be having a lot of coffee meetings (maybe too many). “I don’t want to hear from a hundred startups. I’m just one guy,” he says.
And how does the global recession affect his outlook? “It doesn’t make it easy,” Poole admits. “But the time is right for getting people enthusiastic for making money and giving back to the economy—it plays to it perfectly. We’re all in a difficult way together. On a global basis, America has a new image. We’re going to be more inclusive to the rest of the world, as human beings, not just as guys with guns.”
