Almost 24 years ago I departed on one of the great adventures of my life: 2-1/2 years working in Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer (the other big adventures have been marriage and raising children!).

This fall the Peace Corps is set to kick off its 50th anniversary celebration in Ann Arbor with a series of events commemorating then-Sen. John F. Kennedy’s October 1960 speech on the steps of the Michigan Union, a speech that challenged students to dedicate themselves to working in developing nations, and a speech that set in motion what was to become the United States Peace Corps.

My own experience as a volunteer began in early 1987 as I arrived in Nepal and was assigned to the Appropriate Technology Centre of the Agricultural Development Bank. Our job at the ATC was to take technologies that were “appropriate” to Nepal’s economy, culture and environment and disseminate them among individuals or groups who could embrace the technologies and create sustainable income-generating enterprises around these technologies. These technologies included improved cooking stoves (to reduce firewood usage and therefore deforestation), small-scale hydroelectric installations (making use of the abundant potential energy stored in Nepal’s mountainous streams), and underground methane digesters (using cow and water buffalo dung as a fuel to create methane gas).

A lesson I learned then, which applies in my work today - technology is the least of the challenges. Culture and education are the real barriers to economic development, for any region or society. The longer I lived in Nepal the more I realized how clueless I was to the underlying forces that held sway in the ultimate success or failure of the programs I was trying to promote (and which seemed so obviously beneficial to me).

Unfortunately Michigan struggles with some of the same reluctance to reconsider age-old attitudes as we struggle with crippling unemployment and political gridlock.

To learn more about the events planned at the University of Michigan to commemorate the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary please visit www.peacecorps.umich.edu.

Daryl Weinert is the Executive Director of the University of Michigan’s Business Engagement Center. He can be reached at weinert@umich.edu.