Wide Angle: Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project

May 11, 2009

OK, so it's true that mobile telecom giant Vodafone knows a thing or two about making money. The company currently operates in more than 25 countries, and has more than 250 million customers. Many of these millions are in developing countries, where things like infectious diseases and sudden natural disasters take heavy tolls. Well, the Vodafone Americas Foundation, a non-profit arm of the company, is looking for ways to help. It just ran what it calls the Wireless Innovation Project. One hundred applicants submitted ideas that harnessed new and existing wireless technologies in pursuit of social good. The idea was to show not only great use of technology, but also a clear sense of how these products could, and would, make it to market. The three winners were recently announced at the Global Philanthropy Forum in Washington, DC.

I just happened to be there, and was lucky enough to get to sit down with the three winners. Two of the projects, including the CellScope you see at right, try to capitalize on a smartphone's imaging abilities. The CellScope works by fitting a microscope lens onto a phone's camera, so that a field worker trying to find out if someone has tuberculosis or malaria could get lab-quality imaging of blood while out in the field. The other imaging project, the CelloPhone, dispenses with the camera lens entirely. Samples are placed directly on the cameras imaging sensors, essentially creating a hologram of the cells that are imaged. What can a cell hologram tell you? Plenty, it turns out. The third project is all about ANTs (that's "active networked tags"). Imagine if our buildings, our bridges, our roads, even our clothes were filled with small tags that could talk to each other (and rescue teams) in the event of an emergency.

Powerful ideas. I don't know if any of this tech will save the world, but these devices might make it a little more livable for whole lot of human beings. Listen in to the podcast:

You can also visit this page to watch a short video that gives more information on all three projects.

(Photo courtesy of Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project)

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