Paras Dagli's blog

Amina Harun, a 45-year-old farmer, used to traipse around for hours looking for a working pay phone on which to call the markets and find the best prices for her fruit. Then cell phones changed her life.

Wall Street Journal has an interesting article talking about innovation happening at the grassroot level in developing countries.

Consider the pulley, for example. As old as the Greek mathematician Archimedes, who is reputed to have used them to shift an entire warship laden with men, pulleys are still used widely, not least to draw water from wells across India. As the water table drops because of erratic rainfall, submersible pumps and borings, this job has become harder -- and more dangerous -- for the women and children who do it. That's because the greater the height a full bucket has to be lifted, the greater the chance the bucket may slip once it's reached the top, either losing rope and bucket as the rope slides back through the pulley, or burning the hands of anyone who tries to snatch the flailing rope.