Technology reporter, TEDGlobal, Edinburgh<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nTEDGlobal is a conference which puts the sharing of good ideas at the heart of its ethos.<\/p>\n
Many of those ideas are about making improvements to everyday lives.<\/p>\n
Each year the TED organisation chooses a group of new fellows – individuals whose ideas it regards as particularly inspiring.<\/p>\n
The BBC has talked to three of them, all of whom share a desire to transform lives in the developing world.<\/p>\n
Jose Gomez-Marquez has taken an unusual approach to making medical devices for the developing world<\/p>\n
Rather than stripping down complex medical equipment, he uses toy guns and Lego.<\/p>\n
“Toys have amazing mechanical parts. To get a part made from scratch could cost hundreds of dollars but I can go to a market and find toys very cheaply,” he said.<\/p>\n
So the trigger of a toy gun can be taken apart and attached to an IV drip to provide a sound alert when the drip is running low.<\/p>\n
Lego bricks can be moulded to create tiny conduits for medicines in simplified labs-on-chips.<\/p>\n
And nebulizers can be made out of bicycle pumps.<\/p>\n
Mashing up technology is the key to his Innovations in International Health team which is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n
Collaboration with the wider medical community is also important, but the key to the success of his designs is talking to those on the ground who will use the equipment.<\/p>\n
By cooperation with health care workers in Nicaragua, Mr Gomez-Marquez came up with a system to persuade TB patients to take the medicines they needed to help cure them.<\/p>\n
Health workers suggested that a good incentive would be offering patients mobile phone top-ups, so he designed test strips which, once used, revealed a code which people could text to receive phone credits.<\/p>\n
Mr Gomez-Marquez is also creating kits for field workers, with a range of parts that they can use to build their own makeshift medical equipment.<\/p>\n
“I couldn’t build them a clinic but I can provide them with a Lego kit for them to make their own devices,” he said.<\/p>\n
Femi Akinde decided to create SlimTrader when he realised that he couldn’t buy a plane ticket online when he was in Africa.<\/p>\n
“Consumers aren’t able to access data, and goods and services don’t tend to be online anyway,” he said.<\/p>\n
To combat this dual problem, Mr Akinde decided to link retailers with customers via a platform that everyone could access – text messaging.<\/p>\n
SlimTrade is in the early stages of development but hopes to launch in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria over the coming months.<\/p>\n
The service will allow, for instance, a farmer trying to source fertilizer to send a text message and get a response from SlimTrader outlining all the distributors near to where he lives.<\/p>\n
“He can find someone who is a credited distributor so he knows he won’t be sold fake fertilizer, which is a very big problem. And he doesn’t have to leave his house,” explained Mr Akinde.<\/p>\n
Mobile phone usage is exploding in Africa and it has allowed mobile banking to take off, bringing previously undreamt of financial services to people.<\/p>\n
By tying businesses to customers in a similar way, one of the biggest gaps between the developing and developed world can be closed, explains Mr Akinde.<\/p>\n
“Buying online is something the Western world takes for granted. I don’t buy anything unless I can find it online,” he said.<\/p>\n
And in Africa, instant access to a range of services can be really transformational.<\/p>\n
“It means people can plan a trip ahead of time and they won’t have to travel great distances and not know whether they are going to find what they want at the end,” he said.<\/p>\n
In Guatemala, 20% of the population has no access to electricity.<\/p>\n
It was not a problem that affected Manuel Aguilar who had moved to the US to study and then went on to work in the financial markets.<\/p>\n
But one day he had a lightbulb moment.<\/p>\n
“I was helping rich people get richer and I thought my skills could be better used,” he said.<\/p>\n
Back home in Guatemala, he founded Quetsol, an energy company offering a simple solution to the lack of electricity.<\/p>\n
The firm makes kits, which consists of a battery, an LED lightbulb and a small solar panel. So far it has sold 1,000.<\/p>\n
The battery also offers a socket which allows people to charge their mobile phones, something that was far from easy before.<\/p>\n
“People used to have to walk two hours to charge their phones and pay for it,” said Mr Aguilar.<\/p>\n
In the next few months Quetsol plans to launch a 30 watt battery which will allow people to power a computer.<\/p>\n
“It will give families internet access and education for their kids,” said Mr Aguilar.<\/p>\n
At \u00a3240, the kit isn’t cheap but the company had done a deal with the biggest bank in Guatemala which allows people to pay $13 a month.<\/p>\n
“That is what they would have spent on candles,” said Mr Aguilar.<\/p>\n
Despite the surprising simplicity of the kit, there is little to rival it in the country and Mr Aguilar hopes his personal approach will pay dividends.<\/p>\n
His mobile phone number is printed on the back of the battery pack and he prides himself on customer service.<\/p>\n
“If something is wrong with the kit we tell them to take it back to where they bought it and they will get a new one. They have never had service like this before. It is about treating the customer with respect,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
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