I don't think you should be downvoted, it's a consideration that should probably always be somewhere in the back of people's minds when they go to some emerging

I don't think you should be downvoted, it's a consideration that should probably always be somewhere in the back of people's minds when they go to some emerging market, considering history. Maybe in the same way that Germany asks themselves what their true purpose is when they're adding to their military budget. But it would be nice to see some suggestion of what the "proper" way to try to help out in the developing world if you're an altruism-minded tech person. Off the top of my head... You could completely avoid going there and stay at home, because anything you do is inherently corrupt and colonialist. Let's call this the Catholic option (original sin and all). OK, but "emerging" can stay that way for decades or just never emerge; whatever knowledge you have stays locked in your head. Maybe eventually, some Western corporation comes in with the product you would have built there, except it's all made overseas and only takes from the local economy. You could go there and teach coding and entrepreneurship. Great idea! Hope someone is paying your bills to do so (they're going to be higher than you think). But there's another issue here: there is a local environment. You can't just import your knowledge, it's kind of specific to where you're from and won't work. Everything from -- how do you interact with employees? (Believe me, Silicon Valley BS does not fly in the international workforce.) What are the buying habits and needs of your local customers? How do you deal with governments that range from inefficient to massively corrupt? At best, with no local experience, you're teaching skills that are not really as great as you think they are. You could join an existing local company. Whoops, nobody can hire you and/or there are none and/or you don't speak the language. Also, you don't have a work permit. Nobody is particularly interested in this weirdo with no local experience going around offering their knowledge. Honestly, I'm trying to give you a fair reading. I have traveled, I've started a (very small, still exists but isn't growing) startup in an emerging country, and it is just really difficult. Everything is different, and trying to adapt what you know is not a cakewalk. The capitalist model works because you have to get hands-on, figure out how to actually build something, and work through the very difficult puzzle of how knowledge actually is transferred. And in my personal experience, the big successes really aren't "Westerner barges into and takes over local market" anyway. There's usually some connection -- off the top of my head, look at Canva, with a second-generation Filipina-Australian building a massive business in the Philippines (with help from US and Aus investors / execs).