Prof. Michael Kremer is the joint winner of Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (Economics Nobel Prize) 2019, for the “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. He is an Economics Professor at the University of Chicago, where he directs the Development Innovation Lab (DIL). Kremer is also the co-founder and Scientific Director of the DIV Fund, an open, tiered, evidence-based fund that supports innovation for development.

Kremer actively translates his academic work into real-world programs. DIL develops, tests, and collaborates to scale innovations with the potential to reach at least 100 million people in low- and middle income countries. Kremer and DIL currently work on research and innovation in agriculture, education, water treatment, road safety, and micro finance. Kremer also works on how to design institutions to accelerate innovation, including through Advance Market Commitments (AMC) and social innovation funds.

He helped to design an AMC for a pneumococcal vaccine, saving an estimated 700,000 lives. As part of the Accelerating Health Technologies group, he conducted research and advised governments and international organizations on how to accelerate vaccination against COVID-19. His work on school-based deworming informed India’s national deworming day, which treats over 275 million children each year. His work on safe drinking water led to the Dispensers for Safe Water Program, which reaches 9 million people via the NGO Evidence Action. He is also collaborating with the Government of India on the integration of in-line chlorination to ensure safe water delivery in rural water supply systems. He is a co-founder of Precision Development, which leverages digital technology to improve productivity and incomes for small-holder farmers in developing countries. He is also co-director of the Human-Centered Weather Forecasts (HCWF) initiative, which aims to expand access to weather forecasts in low- and middle-income countries, and has already reached tens of millions of farmers. He is an advisor to the AI Access Initiative.