NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Which major breakthroughs in technology have had a transformative effect on the lives of the world’s poorest? Vaccines for polio and other serious diseases; HIV anti-retrovirals; mosquito bed-nets with powerful insecticide infused into its fabric. All have transformed lives by dramatically reducing disease.

What are the next breakthroughs around the corner? Two years ago, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s Institute for Globally Transformative Technologieslaunched a study to identify the 50 most important technology breakthroughsrequired for sustainable global development so that all of us who work in the technology-for-development space can put our collective efforts towards them.

Working with more than 1,000 experts, we have analysed where new technologies can make a game-changing difference in the fields of global health, food security and agriculture, education, human rights, the digital divide, access to water, gender equity, access to electricity and resilience against climate change.

Focusing on global health, the most important breakthroughs we have identified are: