Ken Banks (who was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer last year) uses cheap - - but powerful - - technology to change the lives in the developing world. Ten-dollar cell phones are easier to obtain than Internet access in many parts of the developing world. Cheap phones have become the platform for making the Internet unnecessary in those places. NGOs and aid groups are exchanging vital information from laptop to cell phone in areas the Internet doesn't reach. Banks's FrontlineSMS text messaging software, which he offers for free, is used in more than 70 countries - - from monitoring local elections, to running rural health-care, to obtaining commodity prices - - the software has been downloaded more than 14,000 times.
It's software you install on any computer. Then you connect the computer to a mobile phone using a cable. Finally, with even just one bar of mobile phone signal, you can send test messages to communities and groups in the most rural areas. It leapfrogs into where digital communication didn't exist.
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