Zack Lynch is the founder and executive director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization (NIO) and co-founder of NeuroInsights. He serves on the advisory boards of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT,Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, the InnerSpace Foundation, the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies and SocialText, a social software company. His book on how brain science is changing our world will be available July 2009. Please send newsworthy items or feedback - to Zack Lynch.
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.