• Manu is a Senior Advisor and Staff Coordinator to the Under Secretary for Technology and Internet Policy Matters, reporting to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment.

• Manu serves as a key advisor on a variety of international economic matters, including technology and internet policy. Over the past fifteen years, Manu has worked in all three branches of the federal government and has served as an attorney at various prominent law firms.

• Manu graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University and a Juris Doctor from Michigan Law School.

Three weeks ago, the UN General Assembly ratified 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Global Goals for Sustainable Development mapped on DebateGraph here: debategraph.org/globalgoals

One of those goals has as a target to “significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.” In urging ratification of these goals, President Obama told the General Assembly that ‘this next chapter of development cannot just be about what governments spend, it has to harness the unprecedented resources of our interconnected world.’

Along those lines, the United States supported by other governments along with Dr. Jim Yong Kim of the World Bank, major corporations and global NGOs launched a new ‘Global Connect initiative’ that seeks to connect an additional 1.5 billion people by the Internet by 2020. This diplomatic effort seeks to make ICT a development priority equivalent to other forms of traditional infrastructure.

At Stanford and beyond, my hope is that we are able to brainstorm ways to ensure that transformative digital technology is more widely accessible to everyone on Earth. How can we best leverage the growing international support for ‘Global Connect?’ How can academic institutions, like Stanford, help support such efforts? What are the best ways to leverage the talented cadre of technical experts and industry executives for these digital efforts?

For example, can we create a ‘Global Connect Corps’ of technical experts and other industry leaders to travel overseas and make a real difference in the digital lives of people in the developing world, modeled after the Peace Corps? What is the role of Multilateral Development Banks like the World Bank in light of the forthcoming World Bank Development Report? It will take all of us, working in partnership, to connect the rest of the world.”

For more on the United Nations initiatives by the US and others related to Global Connect, see the Reference Articles for the People-Centered Internet pages 6,7 & 8.