Emerging technologies offer developing countries unique opportunities to catch up with leading countries and improve living standards in ways that mature and tested technologies do not. Emerging technologies disrupt existing business models and systems (such as wireless technologies and advanced energy technologies), open up new technological niches (such as mobile money, which works as a game changer in poorer countries but serves as a mere add-on in more advanced countries) that allow less developed countries to leapfrog old technologies (such as animal-drawn carts, landlines, thermal electricity generation stations), and reduce entry barriers through co-learning by both developing and developed countries alike (such measures as the governance of cryptocurrencies and taxing of digital firms are being implemented in rich and poor countries alike). The less developed countries, however, face the challenge of limited intellectual assets, financial resources and key infrastructure, and also of the institutions needed to acquire, learn, use, manage and further upgrade new and emerging technologies.
