Technology Benefiting Humanity

This year’s annual Tech Awards honored the top international innovators who are using technology to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.

The 2013 Tech Laureates have just been announced and it is an amazing and diverse roster of individuals and groups being recognized for using technology to benefit humanity.

I am always amazed at the ingenuity and passion on display at the annual Tech Awards, presented by Applied Materials. And, last night’s Gala in Silicon Valley, a benefit for the Tech Museum, was not a disappointment.Fifteen Tech Laureates from five countries explained their unique remedies to global problems including access to safe drinking water, the lack of financial services in India, failing education systems, and health care inequality. Solutions included a solar powered water ATM, a voice-based knowledge system accessed via mobile phones, and an alphabet-teaching puppet with its own television show!

A doctor devised a “solar suitcase” to provide emergency lighting and power for medical procedures conducted in regions without access to a consistent source of electricity.Ethiopian television has created a children’s show to increase functional literacy in the country by using a popular puppet to teach youth the overwhelming 231 characters of their native language.An organization in India offers affordable, potable water via solar-powered “water ATMs” to people living on less than $2 a day.These extraordinary efforts that use technology to benefit humanity are among the 15 projects announced today as recipients of the 2011 Tech Awards, presented by Applied Materials in partnership with the Tech Museum.

It would be tough duty to be a judge for the Tech Awards, the annual global technology competition sponsored by Applied Materials. Every one of the laureates, as they call the amazing group of finalists each year, made it through a rigorous judging and application process, lead by Santa Clara University, to the final awards gala in San Jose, California. Every one of them is worthy of an award.