Tag Archives: Silicon Valley

Views from Silicon Valley: Helping client countries keep up with changing technology

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It is time to tell you a secret my friends. I am a girl who codes. Before joining the Worldsilicon_valley Bank, I was fluent in ASCII, developing systems and applications to make it easier to get things done.

Nearly 20 years after writing my first lines of code, I stepped onto the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington, representing the World Bank Governance Global Practice and the GovTech Global Partnership task team. Along with a delegation representing leadership across the Bank, we visited Redmond and Silicon Valley to meet with some of the top players in Big Tech.

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Why the World Bank’s venture capital arm is investing in Silicon Valley

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Article posted on devex. 26 May, 2016

It might seem off mission for investors who say they want to drive prosperity in 7R38yLAmxJ1aGXpk3ZbEQh08ROPnttoyPQQxmSZLaj5OhmpWDNPRN0W3iLuSAqBhdz4PjGBThqqzeVVrM97XQRxKKbeEGhugd5VpmIeKMyJbO9K5sEE3msIZhHfqdOJNl2pF370zdeveloping countries to support entrepreneurs based in the city with the most concentrated venture capital in the world.

Most of the more than $100 million the venture arm of the World Bank’s International Finance Corp. will invest this fiscal year will go to the emerging markets, including tech hubs such as Nairobi, Kenya — dubbed the “Silicon Savannah”. But recently the IFC has also invested in Silicon Valley companies such as the cloud-based software company Ayla, the satellite company Planet Labs and the online education company Coursera.

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