For quite a while now, one of the major veins running through American discourse has been about the intersection of public and private sectors.
A new story getting headlines today brings this issue to the forefront, with a pretty interesting example of what happens when private industry begins to out-muscle the government apparatus of a world power.
That world power being the United States…
Tech journalists and others are citing a story breaking in the Daily Beast where writer Mark Harris talks about an unusual charity operation call Global Support and Development (GSD), which Harris calls a “secretive disaster charity” reportedly run by Google’s Sergey Brin. GSD is largely out of the public eye, and squarely in the private sector.
“For the past five years, GSD has been quietly using high-tech systems to rapidly deliver humanitarian assistance during high-profile disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic,” Harris writes. “These range from drones and super-yachts to a gigantic new airship that the outfit apparently hopes will make it easier to get aid supplies into disaster zones.”
Apparently, cadres of Brin’s former bodyguards, along with ex-military personnel, are helping out in places like Abaco after natural disasters like Hurricane Dorian.
In the course of explaining how these operations work, Harris details some of the impressive capabilities of this corporate based charity force including using sonar to analyze the sea floor for hazards and bringing strategic approaches to offering charity recipients good food and clean laundry.
“Aviation experts set up an air traffic control system at Abaco’s damaged airport,” Harris writes. “The operation allowed over 1100 civilian and military aid flights to land, and many evacuees to escape. The team claims to have even provided detailed satellite images of the devastation to Bahamian authorities.”
The question, aside from the actual logistics of operations, involves the role of government and the role of business in civic participation. To wit, if the government can’t do it, and private business can, where do you draw the line between power and philanthropy? And how should this type of work be viewed?
“There needs to be an expectation of transparency, to grasp how his charity interacts with current efforts at catastrophe aid, and so we residents can look at whether or not it is in step with what democratic establishments need to accomplish,” said Rob Reich, co-director of Stanford College’s Middle on Philanthropy and Civil Society, in a published response.
As we look at how technology is leveraged to help people, we would do well to keep these kinds of phenomena in our discussions. The evaluation of these programs will be important in a quickly changing world where disruptions apply.