The Wall Street Journal
If you want to make a dent in the real problems of poor people around the
world, don't fund another panel of experts to do a major report on global
hunger, overpopulation, global poverty, global illiteracy, child labor or
ethnic strife. Don't create a program, institute or project staffed by earnest
young political scientists and economics postdocs. Don't convene a forum
of leading thinkers, CEOs, journalists, and statesmen at a conference
center in Aspen, Jackson Hole, Vale, Davos, Geneva or any other beautiful
locale. This has all been done, sometimes usefully, but it's not what's most
needed now.
Instead, work from the bottom up. Do the 21st-century equivalent of what
Andrew Carnegie did a century ago: Build public libraries for the world's
digital have-nots. I don't mean giant marble-edificed, intimidating
Greek-columned places downtown, housing millions of tomes. I mean
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