Josh Powell
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Josh Powell is the Chief Executive Officer at Development Gateway: An IREX Venture (DG), overseeing DG’s management team, coordinating strategy, and supporting the overall organizational performance of DG’s global team, which is comprised of 70+ professionals in 18 countries.
Josh has more than 15 years of experience in digital and data for development across many sectors, including health, agriculture, education, governance, and public financial management. Developed through his work on various international, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and on programming in more than a dozen countries, Josh has expertise in reconciling global norms, practices, and standards with country needs, systems, and institutions. He has also worked extensively in both program implementation and policy design.
Josh has partnered with and advised a range of development institutions, including USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the World Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has also supported country governments across West, East, and Southern Africa; South Asia; East Asia and the Pacific; and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Josh chairs the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data’s Technical Advisory Group. He sits on the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Advisory Council, serves on the Board of Directors of Open Data Watch, and is a member of the OpenGov Hub Management Team. He previously sat on the Members’ Assembly and Technical Advisory Group at International Aid Transparency Initiative.
Josh has an MS in Public Policy from Brigham Young University and a BS in Finance from the University of Baltimore.
Recent Posts
Technology for a Stronger Democracy? Key Insights from the Third Summit for Democracy
During the recent Summit for Democracy in Seoul, South Korea, DG led a session exploring how national commitments to developing technology can strengthen democracy and combat corruption. From that conversation, we identified three insights on how to advance this essential work.
Advancing Digital Public Infrastructure: Emerging Practices for Creating Sustainable, Inclusive Systems at Scale
From DG’s more than 20 years of experience in creating, delivering, and adapting open source and open data solutions, we’ve learned several best practices on how to make technology accessible and sustainable while prioritizing engagement from open source communities—these practices can be applied to building and implementing DPIs. In this blog, we’ll explore what DPI is, DG’s approach to DPI, and three best practices that can be used to ensure DPIs are effective and advance inclusion.
Developing Data Systems: Five Issues IREX and DG Explored at Festival de Datos
IREX and Development Gateway: An IREX Venture participated in Festival de Datos from November 7-9, 2023. In this blog, Philip Davidovich, Annie Kilroy, Josh Powell, and Tom Orrell explore five key issues discussed at Festival de Datos on advancing data systems and how IREX and DG are meeting these challenges.