Trade is to culture as sex is to biology. Exchange makes cultural change collective and cumulative. It becomes possible to draw upon inventions made throughout society, not just in your neighborhood. The rate of cultural and economic progress depends on the rate at which ideas are having sex.
Underlies the assumption on which we work at Madura - that poverty is an outcome of an impoverished network with slow flow of information. By increasing the rate at which people connect and interact with knowledge and information, we believe, interactions become more productive and magic will happen. In Matt Ridley's words we are facilitating trade and idea sex.