The Technology and Management Centre for Development (TMCD) aims to address some of the most important issues related to technology and management facing public and private policymakers today.  Leading this charge is the Centre’s Director, Professor Xiaolan Fu, who continues to make significant academic and policy contributions to the study and application of technology in low-income countries. 

In an article for the 2020 Oxford Department of International Development (ODID) Annual Report, ODID Communications Officer, Jo Boyce profiled the contributions of Professor Xiaolan Fu, in facilitating access to technology for low-income countries. Some of these achievements include: 

• Prof Fu’s role in the creation of the 2030 Connect platform, a new online platform that aims to give low-income countries better information about technology and innovation to help them achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Professor Fu led the independent review working group for the online platform. 
• The launch of the 2030 Connect is an achievement of the Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) – a group established by the UN in 2015 to promote collaboration between stakeholders such as governments, civil society, business, UN agencies in the achievement of the SDGs. In 2016, Prof Fu was appointed as the only academic member of the Advisory Board of the TFM. 
• TMCD's  Diffusion of Innovation in Low-income Countries (DILIC) project   where Prof Fu was the Principal Investigator also informed her participation in the TFM. The project reviewed and analyzed the global evidence available on the nature of innovation in LICs, its origins and diffusion channels, the barriers to innovation, and the role of innovation in sustainable development.The central element of the project was an in-depth study of 500 businesses in Ghana, the ‘Ghana Innovation Survey’.
• As a result of this work, Prof Fu was invited to address the UN General Assembly in 2014where she argued for the need for innovation to be prioritized in low income countries. 
• In recognition of the importance of the Oxford research, Professor Fu was also appointed by then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moonin 2017 to the Governing Council of a new UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries (LDCs). 

You can read the entire article on page 19 of the report here.