New Technologies and Achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals

I feel privileged to have this opportunity to deliver a lecture in honour of Amilcar Herrera. Prof Herrera’s “Latin American World Model” shows how we can shape our future in such a manner that it leads to lasting human happiness and security. It has been an act of vision on the part of the United Nations University and the Government of the Netherlands to have established this Institute for New Technologies. Technology has been in the past an important factor in enlarging the rich-poor divide in the world. Today, the challenge lies in enlisting technology as an ally in the movement for economic and gender equity. This can be achieved if there is a new social contract between technologists and the women and men living in poverty. I hope this Institute will become the flagship of a global movement for technologies for achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals.