Auma Obama states rhetorically in one of her lectures and questions this sentence:

“We teach people to fish instead of giving them fish”.

It’s not an exciting phenomenon? The willingness to provide development aid and at the same time the reluctance when it comes to an apartment or job?

All problems have only one solution: donate money. Well, I did that for 20 years too. What came of it was not only less than zero, it was a toxic addiction.

Again with consequences.

A vicious circle.

I did it on a small scale, but consider the sums being moved back and forth in the name of help. In reality, this help makes small.

Godfrey Odongo, a human rights expert who has already been to almost 30 countries around the world with his mission, also puts it in a nutshell:

“If you’re putting money in the wrong context, then you’ve done nothing to change these people’s lives.”

But how can we succeed in dealing with all these challenges in everyday life with the “others”? How do we truly manage to engage with one another? What is the role of parents and leaders?

I’m convinced that great things can only happen if we have more faith in everyone’s uniqueness and if we’re willing to find a solution together – away from “I’m the financier, so I decide about you and your future”. “Let’s build business together as partners and master challenges.”

That is also what my message as a speaker and project manager is about.

Because with every message, with every program/project or with our products, we shape the future of others.

Right now with technology we have no excuses.

This is precisely why #ethics in technology is more important than ever: because our products and solutions influence the lives of millions of people more than we personally do.

This is where I always quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman:

“With great power comes great responsibility.” – and today the power lies in technology.

So you can ask yourself who you are really helping when you donate or use development funds or products. You may ask to what extent your AI application is responsibly changing the lives of people and their environment.

Doesn’t everything start with meaningfulness?

Internalizing that people can find their way without you gives you time and space to create something better together with them and thus avoid a toxic dependency.

After all, not everyone eats fish.

What do you think about that?