EL BANCO MUNDIAL
GROUP’S
TECHNOLOGY AND
INNOVATION LAB,
FROM CONCEPT TO
DEVELOPMENT
A CASE STUDY IN LEVERAGING AN IT DEPARTMENT
TO SUPPORT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
YUSUF KARACAOGLU, STELA MOCAN, AND RACHEL ALEXANDRA
HALSEMA
yo descubrí, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resist-
ance . . . to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth.
Usually resistance came from those groups who stood to lose influence, estado,
dinero . . . as a result of the change, although they never advanced this as their
reason for resisting it. It was always the good of humanity that rested upon their
hearts.
—Isaac Asimov, lecture delivered at Newark College of Engineering
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.
—John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
The World Bank Group (Bank Group)
blockchain lab was launched in June
2017, largely as a result of the actions of a
small but dedicated group of volunteers
who were interested in how blockchain
technology could be used to solve the
world’s most difficult and intractable
development challenges. This article
describes the evolution of the blockchain
lab from an informal working group to a
fully staffed technology and innovation
unit comprising two
labs: one for
blockchain and a second for artificial
intelligence (AI). It also highlights,
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through the lens of the technology
departamento, the challenges and opportu-
nities of sparking the exploration and use
of transformative technologies in a multi-
lateral, established institution.
FROM CONCEPT TO COMMUNITY
In February 2017, the Bank Group had
little formal experience in disruptive
technologies like blockchain. A working
group had been established by Bank
Group operations staff a year earlier to
follow its development, but the group had
no formal funding or mandate. El
International Finance Corporation (IFC),
the World Bank Group’s private-sector
arm, had explored the blockchain space at
a conceptual level and issued a paper as
part of its Emerging Markets Compass
Thought Leadership series. Blockchain
was also on the radar of the Bank Group’s
IT department as a technology trend that
could have long-term implications for its
infrastructure, but it was not an immedi-
ate priority.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Yusuf Karacaoglu is a Senior Advisor with the World Bank Group’s Information and
Technology Solutions Vice Presidency. He has several decades of hands-on experience lead-
ing digital transformation in developed and developing countries through the application of
technology frameworks, software engineering, operating system and network design
cambios, and infrastructure upgrades. His numerous assignments include serving as the MIS
Director for the State of Massachusetts, working with Partners in Health and Harvard Medical
School in 13 different countries on 4 continents to improve connectivity and networks, estafa-
sulting at the World Health Organization, and experience with the U.S. Air Force and
Dartmouth College.
Stela Mocan joined the Information Technology Solutions Vice Presidency at the World Bank
Group in July 2015 and is leading the Blockchain Lab Initiative, as part of the Technology
and Innovation Unit under the chief information officer. En 2010, Mocan was appointed by
the Government of Moldova as the first Government Chief Information Officer. De 2010 a
2015 she led the digital transformation of government operations and public service delivery.
De 2009 a 2010, she served as the Moldova prime minister’s advisor on governance and
public administration reform. Prior to joining the public service, Mocan led and managed
governance and democracy-building programs with UNDP, USAID, the World Bank, y
international NGOs. Mocan holds a master’s degree in public administration from the
Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a master’s degree in political science from the
National School of Political and Administrative Studies. In March 2015, she was designated
a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Rachel Alexandra Halsema is an IT Officer at the World Bank Group and a member of the
Technology and Innovation unit. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in
Russian language and literature and a master’s degree in information systems technology
from the George Washington University. En 2009, she rode her bicycle 3,800+ miles across
the United States and Canada to raise money and awareness for the cause of affordable
housing.
© 2018 Yusuf Karacaoglu, Stela Mocan, and Rachel Alexandra Halsema
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Yusuf Karacaoglu, Stela Mocan, and Rachel Alexandra Halsema
In short, the Bank Group’s relation-
ship with blockchain consisted mostly of
informal discussions, research papers,
and the occasional talk. This would soon
cambiar. What follows is the story of how
the World Bank Group developed its own
innovation lab to focus on disruptive
technologies like blockchain and AI and
located that lab in an unusual place: el
technology department.
To understand the Bank Group’s
innovation journey, we must first under-
stand its operating environment and the
IT department that supports it. El
World Bank Group comprises 15,000+
full-time staff members working in 170
countries around the globe. As part of its
ambitious goals to end extreme poverty
and boost shared prosperity, the Bank
Group works with a broad variety of pri-
vate- and public-sector partners, incluir-
ing but not limited to agriculture, educa-
ción, energía, ambiente, finance, gobierno-
ernance, and health. No es sorprendente, el
complex work of
the organization
requires an equally complex IT infra-
estructura. This infrastructure, which was
featured in a 2003 Harvard Business
Review case study on systems transforma-
ción, is supported by a diverse group of
staff located across roughly 110 countries.
En 2016 this group managed 29,200
computers, 25,800 smartphones and
tablets, y 10,050 terabytes of storage,
which gives a sense of its responsibilities.
The role of the technology department
was to enable the smooth, uninterrupted
business activities of a variety of stake-
holders, from executives in Washington,
CORRIENTE CONTINUA., to operational staff working in
remote regions of the world. With major
offices in Washington and Chennai,
India, the technology department was a
center of technical and operational excel-
lence; a successful implementer of large,
complex ERP projects; and a source of
cost efficiencies. Pero, it was not necessari-
ly a thought leader on emerging technolo-
gies.
en la primavera de 2017, we were look-
ing at how to manage the identities of the
various types of individuals who are pres-
ent in the Bank Group’s ecosystem more
effectively, including staff, visitors, estafa-
tractors, consultants, vendors, donors,
partners, and others. The identity and
access management team was exploring
options and scheduling show-and-tell
sessions with external vendors when they
started to see a pattern. A number of com-
panies were suggesting the Bank Group
explore blockchain—not just for identity
management but for other use cases. en un
series of intense sessions over the course
of the spring, leading technology compa-
nies shared with that the Bank Group not
just the technology’s potential but how
the technology department could demon-
strate blockchain’s potential by building
prototype decentralized apps for World
Bank Group use cases.
el
As the IT team began to explore, ellos
realized that they were not alone in seeing
the potential of blockchain. Though still
tecnología
little understood,
appeared to have applicability across use
cases that could be applied to the Bank
Group’s work: supply chain,
comercio
finance, payments, financial reconcilia-
ción, and more. They also realized they
were not the only people in the room any-
más. Others from different parts of the
organization had begun to join them: el
finance and markets Global Practice,
World Bank Treasury, and the IFC. Este
eclectic mix did not necessarily know how
to use the technology or who should take
it forward, but they were interested in
learning about the impact and application
of disruptive technologies and needed a
vehicle to pursue that learning.
It is worth noting that this was a rare
moment. For decades, the World Bank
Group’s technology department has
worked closely with the business on plan-
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The World Bank Group’s Technology and Innovation Lab
ning and implementing vetted, produc-
tion-ready software and hardware: SAP,
Oracle, PeopleSoft, Business Objects,
Informatica, Windows. Although the
department had a rapid-application
development team, most IT projects were
multiyear endeavors requiring careful,
tested approaches that minimized risk
and the potential for failure. But the Bank
Group’s blockchain moment was differ-
ent because the technology was immature
and evolving quickly. Because blockchain
was not production ready and did not
appear close to being so, the Bank Group
had to look at what approach it would
take in this new, untested area. Más
específicamente, how would this new cohort of
explorers from different parts of the insti-
tution come together to move the conver-
sation forward?
LAUNCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
As the spring of 2017 progressed,
momentum began to accumulate around
the creation of a formal blockchain lab.
Interest became so intense that, on short
notice in the last weeks of June, con el
support of newly appointed World Bank
Group chief information officer Denis
Robitaille and technology adviser Yusuf
Karacaoglu, a group of entrepreneurial
staff took the bold step of creating a
blockchain lab. The launch brought
together a variety of groups working on
digital transformation, both within and
outside the Bank and IFC: Michael Casey
of MIT’s Media Lab, Perianne Boring of
the Chamber of Digital Commerce,
Yoshiyuki Yamamoto of UNOPS, Marina
Niforos of Logos Global Advisors,
Michael Pisa of the Center for Global
Desarrollo, and Tomicah Tillemann of
the New America Foundation. Estos
thought leaders and industry participants
expressed a variety of opinions on the
readiness, risks, and opportunities of
blockchain, and their presence under-
scored the importance of the new lab,
which was still a volunteer function but
now had demonstrated buy-in and rele-
vance.
función,
The launch of the lab felt complicated
to this set of pioneering volunteers, y
their journey was just beginning. Con
requests arriving daily from within the
World Bank Group, the team wondered
how they would be able to respond with a
part-time, volunteer workforce. Robitaille
lab
considered the options: If the
remained a volunteer
él
remained a low-risk-enterprise. Con
blockchain not ready for enterprise adop-
ción, the lab could safely function indefi-
nitely with no impact on the technology
department’s core business. But the new
CIO recognized the rareness of this
moment: a group of interested and talent-
ed Bank Group operational staff, had
turned to the technology department for
leadership and guidance on the potential
uses of a new technology for their devel-
oping-country clients. Seeing this oppor-
tunity, Robitaille decided
el
blockchain lab could only deliver if it had
full executive and organizational support.
Through the summer and early fall,
the lab was focused on executing a triple
challenge. Primero, it had to jump through
the bureaucratic hoops required to start a
nuevo, fully staffed and budgeted function
with a work program. Segundo, the lab was
in the middle of coordinating closely with
Aanchal Anand of the World Bank’s
Global Land and Geospatial Unit to
develop its first proof of concept on land
administración, incluido, primero, the regis-
tration of a parcel, transfer of ownership,
and notarization of a transaction. Por último,
the lab needed to continue to support its
clients as it scaled up to include new team
miembros, some of whom had no previous
knowledge of blockchain and were just
beginning to understand it.
eso
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Yusuf Karacaoglu, Stela Mocan, and Rachel Alexandra Halsema
Cifra 1. : Structure of the Technology and Innovation Unit
One of the biggest challenges during
this time was learning fast enough. Equipo
members described this period as “drink-
ing from a fire hose.” Of the small group
had joined the staff of the newly formed
technology and innovation unit (now the
home of the blockchain lab), only one or
two had a good conceptual understanding
of blockchain technology; the rest were
starting from scratch. After a few weeks of
“Blockchain 101,” reading all the founda-
tional documents, the team ran a small
experiment wherein a volunteer sat in a
conference room and each member of the
team took a turn privately explaining
blockchain to him. After everyone had
completed their turn, he told the group
that each of them explained the concept
very differently. This led the team to two
conclusions. Primero, that everyone internal-
izes blockchain differently and that the
unique combination of computer science,
cryptography, and economics makes it
difficult to explain simply and consistent-
ly to others. Segundo, that reading about
blockchain is no substitute for hands-on
experiments and prototypes.
By September 2017, following many
long weeks of sustained effort, the lab had
reached its first milestone. It had become
a fully staffed, dedicated unit in the World
Bank Group technology department, y
it had completed its first proof of concept:
a land-management decentralized appli-
cation leveraging Ethereum. The lab start-
ed sharing its understanding of the tech-
nology not just at a theoretical level but
based on its hands-on experience with the
technology itself. Although the experi-
ment was small and not specific to any
jurisdiction or region, it proved that the
bet on a business-technology collabora-
tion around disruptive technologies was
viable. More than a technical experiment,
it was a successful attempt to rethink the
way the technology department could
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The World Bank Group’s Technology and Innovation Lab
Cifra 2. World Bank Group Blockchain Lab Selected Partners and Community
Members
support and enable the business. It also
provided the land unit and the lab with a
real communication tool they could use
to discuss blockchain with the organiza-
ción.
During this time, external media cov-
erage of blockchain began to increase.
Although blockchain and distributed-
ledger technology had been in existence
desde 2009, following Satoshi Nakamoto’s
seminal paper of October 2008, it had
largely remained off the front pages. Pero
as the fall of 2017 progressed, organiza-
tions around the world—especially those
in the financial sector—started discussing
blockchain more openly and with increas-
ing frequency. The lab harnessed this
wave of interest by planning an aggressive
events schedule at the Bank Group with
market players such as Microsoft, IBM,
Santori, Everid, Evernym,
Marco
Deloitte, Jill Carlson, Google, the Asia
Base, Bitt, RedHat, the UN Alt
Finance Lab, UNICEF, and others. El
goal of these events was to create an
opportunity for staff across the institution
to listen to external thought leaders on
blockchain technology, and to provide an
outlet for their interest and enthusiasm
for learning. The events also spurred
important questions, such as how these
technologies will change
the Bank
Group’s business model and the way it
engages with client countries.
The thought leaders who attended the
World Bank Group event came from a
variety of perspectives: público, privado,
and academic. Robleh Ali represented
MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and
encouraged Bank Group staff “not to
wait” to understand blockchain and its
potential impact on financial systems and
capital markets. Elizabeth Rossiello from
BitPesa described the challenges and
opportunities of leveraging cryptocurren-
cies to enable cross-border payments for
businesses operating in Africa. As a
woman working with blockchain,
Elizabeth also put a different face on dis-
ruptive technologies, sparking discus-
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Yusuf Karacaoglu, Stela Mocan, and Rachel Alexandra Halsema
sions around how it could become a more
diverse and
inclusive space. Alisa
DiCaprio, who represented R3, discussed
opportunities for a better approach to
trade finance—typically a cumbersome,
heavily
intermediated, paper-heavy
process—enabled by distributed ledger
tecnología. Finalmente, Irving Wladawsky-
Berger spoke about blockchain in the
context of the digital economy while also
highlighting the emergence of big data
and AI and the critical importance of
security and trust.
With these conversations came the
need for new communities. The lab had
planned a series of “streams,” or working
grupos, around specific cross-cutting top-
circuitos integrados: legal and policy, tecnología, seguridad,
and knowledge-sharing. Of these streams,
the legality and policy community—joint-
ly led by representatives from the IFC and
World Bank legal departments—pursued
their own conversations around how to
understand this technology. They also
began work on important legal and policy
frameworks, such as a blockchain readi-
ness assessment, to enable the adoption of
the new technology. From the beginning
it was clear that blockchain was not just
the domain of technologists. At one of
their earliest sessions, the legal and policy
community held a standing-room-only
discussion on managing know-your-cus-
tomer compliance in a distributed ledger
ecosystem. Through communities like
este, the lab extended its reach and was
able to support others’ creative, self-led
learning and development. These com-
munities also shed light on the many
challenges of adopting blockchain,
including data protection, privacy con-
cerns, and consumer safeguards. The lab
hopes to leverage the blockchain legal and
policy community to enable high-level
conversations on how policy, regulations,
and laws can handle the new paradigm of
decentralized computing.
One unexpected community that
developed over the course of the fall was a
collaboration with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) innovation lab.
Having recognized as early as August that
both institutions could benefit from join-
ing forces, this community of innovators,
sector specialists, technologists, and oper-
ational staff began to work closely to
develop knowledge around distributed
ledger technology and blockchain. No
only did this save each group effort, pero
deepened the nature of conversations
around the potential impact on individu-
como, business models, and existing para-
digms. Through this collaboration, ambos
the Bank Group and the IMF accelerated
their learning and knowledge. The collab-
oration also put a spotlight on the chal-
lenges of working closely with other
organizaciones: trying to find a digital plat-
form that worked across both firewalls,
finding a better way to communicate than
email, navigating a
jumble of new
acronyms (“I’m from ITS,” “I’m from
MCM”), and getting lost in a maze of con-
ference rooms across five different build-
ings. Practical challenges aside, this lab-
to-lab connection has connected two
worlds of people, thereby shining light on
common interests, synergistic enthusi-
asm, and willingness to collapse tradition-
al organizational boundaries.
Another fruitful experience was the
lab’s engagement of the Bank Group tech-
nology staff. The lab used a combination
of formal and informal methods to con-
nect with this group, including seminars
and coffee meetups in different buildings.
One of the more interesting moments was
the first “TechMuscle” debate, wherein
the lab staff and community members
debated a director in the technology
department about the hype and the reality
of blockchain. Although the technology
department has constant debates over
new technology, it is rare for one to take
place in a public forum. The technology
director took the position that blockchain
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The World Bank Group’s Technology and Innovation Lab
SPOTLIGHT ON WORLD BANK GROUP
BLOCKCHAIN USE CASES
Supply Chain and Development (Lead: Prasanna Lal Das)
Easing the regulatory burden on small businesses can increase competitiveness and fos-
ter innovation. This use case leverages the example of “blockchain at the border,” using
blockchain to track products (and associated suppliers) from their country of origin
and across a border through the Global Value Chain and then using this data to make
it easier for small firms to utilize preferential tariffs as applicable at the border. This use
case will help develop practical tools for governments and the private sector to maxi-
mize the benefits of blockchain implementation, and help test whether blockchain can
be a platform to simplify the regulatory environment for cross-border trade.
Salud (Leads: Andreas Seiter, Dominic Haazen) The last mile of a
pharmaceutical supply chain is a particular challenge in many developing countries,
due to issues with coordination and the management of inventory and orders. Este
use case will explore how blockchain can help track incoming drug stock from when it
arrives at a facility until it is sold or administered to a patient.
Cross-Border Payments and Financial Inclusion (Lead: Harish Natarajan)
This proof-of-concept will explore the potential of blockchain to enable recording
details at each stage of a cross-border remittance and sharing details to interested stake-
holders like correspondent banks and regulators. This is expected to contribute to
reduce the cost of compliance for correspondent banks and remittance service
providers. This proof-of-concept would be expanded to cover more specific use-cases
like enabling payment flows in fragile, conflict and violence affected contexts and bring-
ing further efficiencies to cross-border payment flows.
Carbon Markets (Lead: Eduardo Ferreira)
There are various challenge s to establishing decentralized compliance market at the
country level: difficulty ensuring that climate assets are not sold to multiple countries at
the same time, and double-spending against a country’s “National Determined
Contributions” quota or being counted by multiple countries. The goal of this use case
is to test blockchain’s viability as a platform for carbon-market trading, with the goal of
creating a cheaper, interoperable solution that resolves the double-spend problem of
traditional carbon markets and interoperability between disperse markets and asset
types.
was not a civilization-altering innovation
but “better plumbing.” He also argued
that trusted third parties will still be need-
ed in a blockchain world and that smart
contracts are unlikely to entirely replace
traditional legal contracts, due to their
complexity and nuance. This debate pro-
vided a much-needed outlet for the con-
versation the technology department was
already having, albeit behind closed
doors.
Toward the end of the fall, the lab had
created many use cases for the World
Bank Group to leverage blockchain tech-
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Yusuf Karacaoglu, Stela Mocan, and Rachel Alexandra Halsema
inventory
nology in its development work with
client countries: cross-border payments,
carbon-markets trading, social-impact
tokens, supply chain and traceability, y
pharmaceutical
tracking,
among others. It had worked closely with
its partners in the World Bank Global
Practices and the IFC to pursue ideas,
struggle through bad ones, and revert to
the drawing board multiple times. It also
had connected with the Netherlands and
Australia—countries leading on block-
cadena
su
knowledge and accelerate learning. But as
the lab was preparing to pursue a substan-
tial use case on supply chain with its part-
ners in the World Bank trade and com-
petitiveness Global Practice, it recognized
a key gap: a lack of methodology. Its
exploration of blockchain thus far had
been either vendor-led or organic in
naturaleza, but these weren’t scalable.
technology—to
leverage
To have greater impact, the lab then
began a monthlong sprint to develop a
methodology for exploring and proving
disruptive
tecnologías. This work
included leveraging different resources:
blockchain decision frameworks, innova-
tion thought pieces, technical community
discusiones, and feedback from clients.
The result was an approach that could be
used not just for blockchain but for other
tecnologías, such as AI. All use cases
were mapped against the methodology,
and we realized that, like blockchain in
the marketplace, we had a few use cases at
the stage of creating a minimal viable
product, but many were still in the explo-
ration phase. Sin embargo, this was not nec-
essarily problematic: although a use case
might not be ready for a proof of concept,
it was a useful vehicle to discuss the appli-
cability of blockchain.
At the end of 2017, the lab staff made
a realization that was echoed by advice
from the Dutch Blockchain Coalition:
collaborate or become
irrelevante.
Although the nature of typical IT projects
at the Bank Group was one of specializa-
tion and siloes, this did not work with
blockchain. Siloed project teams would be
unable to do anything interesting or
meaningful by themselves. A networked
approach with fluid leadership, little hier-
archy, rapid demonstration of value, y
as much diversity as possible seemed to
yield the best results. Rather than the
business specifying what was needed and
telling the technology department (or vice
versa), the two groups needed to think
together about the issues, risks, y
opportunities of the digital age. Several
months later, the lab had made sufficient
progress around key use cases to be able
to demonstrate this new way of working.
Several prototypes had been developed by
the internal lab team and external tech-
nology partners, and strong communities
of practice were growing around
blockchain, distributed ledger technolo-
gies, and disruptive technologies in gen-
eral.
LAUNCHING AN ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE LAB
In January 2018, the World Bank Group
technology and innovation unit began its
next evolution in exploring disruptive
tecnologías. Under the guidance of
Denis Robitaille, the lab worked closely
with the Office of the World Bank Group
President to launch a new wing of the lab
that focused on AI.
As was the case with blockchain, el
AI lab was not the first to explore this
technology at the Bank Group. By the
time of the launch, the vice president of
development economics, several World
Bank Global Practices, and the technolo-
gy department itself had been exploring
aprendizaje automático. En tono rimbombante, the Bank
Group finance and accounting, humano
resources, and World Bank Treasury
teams had also been exploring AI in the
context of robotic process automation
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The World Bank Group’s Technology and Innovation Lab
(RPA). These three groups had success-
fully demonstrated the value of using
RPA to automate low-complexity pro-
cessing tasks, such as those associated
with managing World Bank loans to
client countries. Finalmente, different teams at
the Bank Group were also exploring text
analytics. With decades of documents and
records under institutional management,
these teams were interested in exploring
how text analytics could find patterns and
yield insights.
With disparate groups focusing on
AI, the question was what an AI lab would
contribute. The answer was simple: A lab
could be a broker and clearing house for
information across the Bank Group and
could also provide a safe space for experi-
menting with more complex business use
cases that required dedicated exploratory
capacity. The lab could help bring visibil-
ity across teams so they could share what
they were doing. Although this seemed a
simple mandate, the lab had learned that,
internally, communication and coordina-
tion are among the most difficult chal-
lenges at an established, multinational
organización. The AI lab could help
streamline this communication and coor-
dination by providing targeted, experi-
ence-based knowledge and thought lead-
ership.
With the launch of the AI lab came
new challenges. The first was a paradigm
shift for the technology department.
Traditional IT projects might focus on
requisitos, then product selection,
then a limited pilot, followed by a produc-
tion launch. Bank Group IT projects are
heavily governed, closely monitored, y
rarely fail. The lab realized almost imme-
diately that this approach would not work
with AI. The team would instead need to
develop hypotheses, test them, and fail
repeatedly for the sake of learning. Ellos
might find that their problem was not
phrased correctly or that the technology
was not ready, and go back to the drawing
board. Each successive iteration would
bring greater insights, that could be dis-
cussed and applied to new experiments.
One of the earliest friction points
between this new philosophy and the
organization was in corporate procure-
mento: How would the institution recon-
cile its time-honored approach to com-
petitive vendor selection and careful
engagement with supporting risky exper-
iments that might fail immediately and
never lead to a production-ready system?
How would the Bank Group follow stan-
dard, resource-intensive processes while
also trying to minimize cost and effort?
How would market evaluation work for a
space in which knowledge and under-
standing of the technology were still
evolving? Working closely with corporate
procurement, the lab team recognized
that they would need to start thinking
about a different framework for procur-
ing innovation. This process would not be
corto; it would require creative thinking
from both groups, and management’s
apoyo.
Another challenge was meeting client
demand and expectations. The AI lab dis-
covered very early that there was a signifi-
cant amount of interest from many parts
of the organization in adopting AI in its
various forms. AI was not following the
typical Bank Group path of IT-led tech-
nology change followed by slow business
adoption. Bank Group units were not
only seeing the possibilities of AI in their
daily work (p.ej., using chatbots to sched-
ule meetings and conduct research), ellos
wanted to move to production as fast as
posible.
Reflecting on this, a member of the
AI lab said, “People see it and they want
to use it.” This enthusiasm was welcome,
but it also portended the larger issue of
how the technology department would be
able to adapt its traditional model to
deliver innovation more quickly. If cus-
tomers did not want to wait 1-2 years for
innovaciones / volumen 12, number 1/2
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Yusuf Karacaoglu, Stela Mocan, and Rachel Alexandra Halsema
a security accreditation, risk assessment,
and a launch plan, how could the technol-
ogy department change its approach?
Finalmente, as with blockchain, the AI lab
realized that the technology does not fit
within typical organizational boundaries.
In its short time working on experiments,
the team discovered that it is difficult to
work with a technology like AI and limit
oneself to technical questions. When the
team saw the capability of bots to sched-
ule meetings, they also started thinking
about the future of jobs and work: Con
the impact of AI, what would the respon-
sibilities of a World Bank Group adminis-
trative assistant look like in 20 años?
How would we prepare for that future
through re-skilling and personal develop-
mento? How would our employment
architecture and recruitment approach
need to change to reflect the new focus on
creative thinking and relationship devel-
opment?
Although these questions might typi-
cally be asked by World Bank Group HR
professionals, they now are also being
asked by the technology department.
Through this experience, the lab is seeing
firsthand how transformative technolo-
gies like AI and blockchain are blurring
organizational lines of responsibility,
thereby reaffirming the need for different
groups to work together to prepare for a
very different future.
CONCLUSIÓN: HORIZONS
As the World Bank Group technology
and innovation unit reflects on its first
nine months in existence, we cannot help
but think about the future and our role in
preparing Bank Group staff to embrace
transformative technologies. A key ques-
tion for the future will be how the unit can
plug learning and innovation into the
organization’s fabric in terms of learning
new skills, acquiring new knowledge, y
working across boundaries.
The unit’s success will reflect whether
staff members—regardless of whether
they are in the technology department or
business operations—are able to use the
resources provided to them to see future
opportunities more clearly, and to have
informed, high-level conversations about
the impact transformative technologies
have on their work. It will also reflect
whether the team is able to translate its
hands-on work with experiments in
blockchain, AI, and other transformative
technologies into meaningful learning
and knowledge. Finalmente, it will show
whether the Bank Group is able to pro-
vide each staff member with the opportu-
nity to express their natural drive for
innovation and creativity in the applica-
tion of new technology to further the
Bank Group’s mission of reducing
extreme poverty and boosting shared
prosperity.
Looking ahead, the lab’s next chal-
lenge will be to fully embed its work in the
larger Bank Group disruptive technology
agenda of establishing the foundational
building blocks, expanding the capacity of
institutions and people, and harnessing
disruptive technology to solve develop-
ment challenges and manage risks.
Achieving this will require an entrepre-
neurial spirit—of both the technical and
non-technical staff—that created the lab
and helped it grow. It also will require
stamina and commitment from the lab’s
partners across the institution, from the
developers who built the first proofs of
concept to the lawyers who began the
important conversations around enabling
regulatory environments, to the frontline
staff in the Global Practices and IFC who
are working every day to understand how
to bring tomorrow’s technology to bear
on the world’s most pressing challenges.
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