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Tech Innovations Bringing Hope & Health in Developing World

Five tech breakthroughs helping level the playing field in developing countries: inexpensive tablets, laptops, and mobile phones; affordable solar panels and nanotech toilets.
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What’s the Latest Development?


Across the developing world, innovators are finding ways to make technology cheaper and therefore accessible to millions previously excluded by high costs. Affordability is often the greatest hurdle to overcome but here are five areas where it has been achieved: inexpensive tablets, laptops, and mobile phones; rotating solar panels and nanotech toilets.

What’s the Big Idea?

Improving sanitation is key to the progress of developing countries, which is why Bill Gates, for instance, pledged to reinvent the toilet. Last year, India’s Tata Chemicals released an affordable water filter that uses nanotechnology, requires no electricity and meets U.S. sanitation standards. The filter is made of rice husk ash and fine nano-silver particles to prohibit bacteria growth.

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