Tantalizing glimpses of how technology that is developed by Indians is already empowering and enabling millions were provided at the conclave. Pontin talked about how Technology Review's annual list of technologists who could change the world is increasingly being dominated by Indians.
In 2004, there was Vikram Sheel Kumar, founder of Dimagi - a unique combination of engineering and medicine. Kumar is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and the Harvard Medical School. His software products have encouraged compliance from diabetic patients and removed stigma from HIV/AIDS testing.
Then in 2007, Tapan Pareek's work, which helped Kerala fishermen keep track of market prices on their cell phones, was highlighted. This year, it's the turn of computer science professor Vivek Pai to turn out a technology that will help store web content to enable poor students in developing nations beat bad net connections.
As can be seen from the examples above, the nature of the technologies emerging from innovation labs around the world today is completely democratic, having the power to touch billions - the literate and the unlettered, the affluent as well as those at the bottom of the pyramid.
If the Indian innovators, tuned to the needs of the less advantaged in their country, are coming out with technologies to address this space, then large multinational corporations, admittedly driven by marketing compulsions, are also now focusing on this segment.
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