Exploring the impact that converging technologies will have in developing countries was Jim Hurd, NanoScience Exchange, and Sarah McCue, UNDP. Highlights as follows:
- Adoption in developing countries isn't always slow - Mobile phones in China went from 1 million users in 1997 to over 200 million by the end of 2001.
- The Grameen Bank + mobile phones = success - The ability of the Grameen Bank to lease a wireless mobile phone to poor women in a small town in places like rural India has been a huge success for everyone.
- By viewing knowledge as a global commodity, CITRIS, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, is looking at new ways to create an always on network in all developing nations.
- No small task to develop microfluidic chips that can enable low-cost diagnostics under $1 - New micro-ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) tests being developed at Harvard could transform disease diagnostics throughout the developing world. The new chips only require 1 drop of blood, the chips are resusable, and the detection system is now down to $45.
Special thanks went out to following for contributing to this important on-going work in developing countries: Jerome Glenn, Claude Leglise, Tom Kalil, Chris Hurd, Raj Bawa and Anil Srivastava.
Zack Lynch is author of 
