full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Joy Sun: Should you donate differently?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, these are all material needs. In veiatnm, elderly recipients used their cash transfers to pay for cnffois. As someone who wonders if Maslow got it wrong, I find this ccoihe to prioritize siiaruptl needs deeply hublmnig. I don't know if I would have chosen to give food or equipment or coffins, which begs the question: How good are we at allocating resources on behalf of the poor? Are we worth the cost? Again, we can look at empirical evidence on what happens when we give poeple stuff of our cshoniog. One very telling study looked at a program in inida that gives licestovk to the so-called ultra-poor, and they found that 30 percent of recipients had turned around and sold the livestock they had been given for cash. The real iorny is, for every 100 darlols worth of assets this program gave someone, they spent another 99 dollars to do it. What if, instead, we use technology to put cash, whether from aid agencies or from any one of us directly into a poor person's hands. Today, three in four Kenyans use miolbe money, which is basically a bank account that can run on any cell phone. A sender can pay a 1.6 percent fee and with the click of a button send money directly to a recipient's account with no intermediaries. Like the technologies that are disrupting isteirdnus in our own lives, payments technology in poor countries could disrupt aid. It's spreading so quickly that it's possible to imagine reaching bnlliois of the world's poor this way.

Open Cloze


Now, these are all material needs. In _______, elderly recipients used their cash transfers to pay for _______. As someone who wonders if Maslow got it wrong, I find this ______ to prioritize _________ needs deeply ________. I don't know if I would have chosen to give food or equipment or coffins, which begs the question: How good are we at allocating resources on behalf of the poor? Are we worth the cost? Again, we can look at empirical evidence on what happens when we give ______ stuff of our ________. One very telling study looked at a program in _____ that gives _________ to the so-called ultra-poor, and they found that 30 percent of recipients had turned around and sold the livestock they had been given for cash. The real _____ is, for every 100 _______ worth of assets this program gave someone, they spent another 99 dollars to do it. What if, instead, we use technology to put cash, whether from aid agencies or from any one of us directly into a poor person's hands. Today, three in four Kenyans use ______ money, which is basically a bank account that can run on any cell phone. A sender can pay a 1.6 percent fee and with the click of a button send money directly to a recipient's account with no intermediaries. Like the technologies that are disrupting __________ in our own lives, payments technology in poor countries could disrupt aid. It's spreading so quickly that it's possible to imagine reaching ________ of the world's poor this way.

Solution


  1. spiritual
  2. choosing
  3. people
  4. mobile
  5. livestock
  6. irony
  7. choice
  8. india
  9. dollars
  10. coffins
  11. industries
  12. billions
  13. vietnam
  14. humbling

Original Text


Now, these are all material needs. In Vietnam, elderly recipients used their cash transfers to pay for coffins. As someone who wonders if Maslow got it wrong, I find this choice to prioritize spiritual needs deeply humbling. I don't know if I would have chosen to give food or equipment or coffins, which begs the question: How good are we at allocating resources on behalf of the poor? Are we worth the cost? Again, we can look at empirical evidence on what happens when we give people stuff of our choosing. One very telling study looked at a program in India that gives livestock to the so-called ultra-poor, and they found that 30 percent of recipients had turned around and sold the livestock they had been given for cash. The real irony is, for every 100 dollars worth of assets this program gave someone, they spent another 99 dollars to do it. What if, instead, we use technology to put cash, whether from aid agencies or from any one of us directly into a poor person's hands. Today, three in four Kenyans use mobile money, which is basically a bank account that can run on any cell phone. A sender can pay a 1.6 percent fee and with the click of a button send money directly to a recipient's account with no intermediaries. Like the technologies that are disrupting industries in our own lives, payments technology in poor countries could disrupt aid. It's spreading so quickly that it's possible to imagine reaching billions of the world's poor this way.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
cash transfers 3
poorest people 2
poor people 2
cell phone 2
send money 2


Important Words


  1. account
  2. agencies
  3. aid
  4. allocating
  5. assets
  6. bank
  7. basically
  8. begs
  9. behalf
  10. billions
  11. button
  12. cash
  13. cell
  14. choice
  15. choosing
  16. chosen
  17. click
  18. coffins
  19. cost
  20. countries
  21. deeply
  22. disrupt
  23. disrupting
  24. dollars
  25. elderly
  26. empirical
  27. equipment
  28. evidence
  29. fee
  30. find
  31. food
  32. gave
  33. give
  34. good
  35. hands
  36. humbling
  37. imagine
  38. india
  39. industries
  40. intermediaries
  41. irony
  42. kenyans
  43. lives
  44. livestock
  45. looked
  46. maslow
  47. material
  48. mobile
  49. money
  50. pay
  51. payments
  52. people
  53. percent
  54. phone
  55. poor
  56. prioritize
  57. program
  58. put
  59. quickly
  60. reaching
  61. real
  62. recipients
  63. resources
  64. run
  65. send
  66. sender
  67. sold
  68. spent
  69. spiritual
  70. spreading
  71. study
  72. stuff
  73. technologies
  74. technology
  75. telling
  76. today
  77. transfers
  78. turned
  79. vietnam
  80. wonders
  81. worth
  82. wrong