Luis Triveño has spent his 20+ career leading and executing development projects in 30+ countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, working with governments to give the poor access to the tools they need to protect their assets and help them — and their countries — prosper.

“My reform work, which has often involved collaborating with lawyers, engineers, risk managers and software coders, has turned me into a firm believer that technology such as Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning ought to be used for more than finding the right movies or parking our cars,” he says. These tools have the potential to change — even save — the lives of the poor.

Triveño is currently a Senior Urban Development Specialist at the World bank where he co-leads the Global Program for Resilient Housing (GPRH). Founded by Luis, the GPRH supports governments in making vulnerable households more resilient and safer to diseases and disasters. These families are typically beyond the reach of government programs and don’t have access to microfinance or insurance markets to protect their most important, and sometimes only, asset: their homes. Leveraging drone, street-view imagery and machine learning to make visible the invisible conditions in which the poor live, the GPRH seeks to introduce innovations to #BuildBetterBefore the next disaster or pandemic. Since 2018, the GPRH has helped 8 countries identify, include and prioritize families that the government and the private sector tend to ignore in their housing programs and products. As a result, resilient housing investments have increased significantly.

Before joining the Bank in 2015, Triveño was Chief Executive Officer of Proexpansion, a think-tank based in Lima, Peru he founded in 2003. In this role, he led teams that provided advice to governments and companies on public policy reforms and business innovations aimed at lifting the bottom-40 percent out of poverty.

Between 2005 and 2012, he served as Research Economist, Chief Economist, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Hernando de Soto’s Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD). Walking the streets of shantytowns from India to Ethiopia or Guatemala, Triveño has talked to thousands of people struggling to support their families in the informal economy and he learned a lesson that remains at the center of his work: “Effective policies begin in the streets, looking and listening.”