Leaving Africa, Final Thoughts

Tomorrow I jump on a plane to head back to NYC. I have grown fond of Addis Ababa and made some good friends here. Staying on in Addis (I never made it to Tigray as the project vehicle was wrecked and thus I had no wheels) gave me more time to think about what I originally came to Africa for -- to consider the role of technology, educational or otherwise, in a developing world context. Though I think I'm less convinced there is a role, I now have a first hand experience informing that perspective. Further studies and consideration will hopefully lead my thoughts in a more optimistic direction.
Africa (I'll generalize, based only on my travels in Kenya and Ethiopia) has a lot of available and willing human labor and some natural resources to offer the "global market". Yet, the developed world or rather the trans-national companies that create opportunity in this market are obsessed with realizing increased efficiencies (via software and re-engineering) that reduce labor and raw material as inputs (or substitute natural resources [what the developing world has] with synthetic resources [what the developed world can make]). So, in a way it seems that technological innovation might in fact be at odds with the idea that technology can improve lives in the developing world.
But, maybe these same efficiencies can be leveraged to deliver low-cost or public domain educational resources to help people get an education that otherwise would be unavailable. Education might be the most effective catapult out of this disparate situation for individuals. Then again, maybe not; after all good education is driven by good teaching not the materials used to teach with. And what incentives exist today for educated people to teach in Africa?
From what I have read, the past 40 years of aid to Africa has not resulted in a better situation for Africans. However, if Jeff Sachs is right and people in extreme poverty can at least be upgraded to just being poor with the foreign aid dollars already committed and almost on the table, then I think we (the developed world) have an obligation to try. Probably no efforts will be revolutionary in the short term and with our collective short attention span, may be hard to sustain, but this growing global disparity has to be unacceptable even to the most callous capitalists around. We'll see.
My public ruminations and this blog are now done. Thanks for following along; I look forward to seeing you all soon.