Top 10 Tech Inventions of 2018
The Thomson Reuters Foundation has published a list of 10 uses of new technology that help people around the world, from fighting disease to combatting human trafficking to warding off hunger by improving agricultural practices. Here is there list.
Drones fight Zika and other diseases
Robotics are helping fight disease-spreading insects. The United Nations successfully released sterile mosquitos in Brazil from aerial drones to suppress the spread of Zika and other diseases. The released male mosquitos are first sterilized with radiation, and then released to mate with the females. As a result, no viable offspring are produced, and the insect population decreases. The drone application can also be used to control the population of the Aedes mosquitos, which spread dengue and yellow fever. A single drone carrying 20,000 mosquitos can treat 20 hectares in five minutes.
Drones deliver vaccines and medicines to remote regions
Earlier this week, a one-month old baby named Joy received vaccinations against hepatitis and tuberculosis. The unusual factor in this case is that the vaccines were delivered by drones. Joy and her mom live on Vanuatu, an island nation comprising some 80 Pacific islands west of Fiji.
Without the proper infrastructure — airfields, roads or available refrigeration — vaccination in Vanuatu was scarce. The nation launched a programme using drones to deliver medications — and vaccinations — to remote areas. UNICEF and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are providing support for the progamme.
The implementation of drone delivery could help safe lives in many remote regions of our planet.
Blockchain protects children from human trafficking
Human trafficking is a $150 billion a year industry, and 40 million people, mostly women and girls, are estimated to be current trapped in slavery — whether in forced labor or in forced marriages. Undocumented children in particular are often the victims of traffickers, transported across borders to work in brothels or even be killed for their organs.
ConsenSys, a blockchain company that has designed a digital identity project to combat child trafficking, set out to tackle this problem in Moldova, which has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in Europe. There are approximately 40,000 vulnerable children in Moldova whose parents work abroad, and they are left with little supervision, usually by the grandparents.
With ConsenSys’s blockchain system, the first of its kind, children would be asked at the border to provide their fingerprints or eye scans. Their secure digital identity is stored on the decentralized digital ledger, and is then be used to identify their family members and notify them, requiring at least two to approve crossing the border. Attempts to transport a child without permission would be permanently recorded in order to combat the traffickers.
Satellites help fight forced labor
In 2018, the government of Indonesia, whose coast is full of Thai vessels, released more than 2,000 enslaved fishermen and arrested some of the offenders. The problem of forced labor has been tremendous in Thailand, which has implemented a number of new technologies — from satellites to optic scanning and electronic payment services — to combat abuses, including modern slavery, in the multibillion-dollar fishing industry, after the EU threatened to ban fish exports.
More than half of the estimated 600,000 industry workers hail from poor neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar, and frequently face forced labor and withheld wages. The forced workers also endure physical abuse, and many some die at sea; many survivors suffer from severe malnutrition.
Thai ships were ordered by the government to have satellite communications so that workers can contact their families, and problems at sea can be reported. Human rights groups are also tracking the ships with satellites to see which vessels that remain at sea for a long time, which is usually a sign of enslavement. While it will take some time to solve the problem entirely, technology is making it possible for law enforcement to get involved and track the offenders.
Safety app helps women stay safe in India
The Indian government is faced with an appalling trend: crimes against women have increased by 80 percent between 2007 and 2016. The rape and murder of a young woman on a New Delhi bus in 2012 prompted the Red Dot Foundation to create an app called SafeCity for helping women in India stay safe in public spaces by reporting harassment and getting help. Safety is the biggest concern for women who use public and private transportation, according to a Thomson Reuters Foundation study. The purpose of the app is to warn women about dangerous areas, and also to direct attention of the officials to these areas so that they can take action.
Virtual reality combats sexual harassment
Digital expert Morgan Mercer’s Vantage Point, a sexual harassment training programme created in virtual reality, is educating workplaces about sexual harassment in a new way. No seminars or manuals would measure up to the uncomfortable intimacy created by the virtual reality, Mercer realised. Basing it on the idea that it’s difficult to explain a feeling one has never felt, Vantage Point allows users to actually experience uncomfortable situations and make decisions that have consequences. After the employees undergo the VR experience, their decisions are reviewed and constructive feedback is given.
India’s slums tracked by satellite to improve services
According to the United Nations, a third of the world’s population lives in informal settlements. Satellites are helping the Indian government to map the informal settlements, known as the slums, so that they can deliver services to these areas. The slums are generally undercounted, which results in the lack of essential services, and thus growing poverty.
In India, about 65 million people live in the slums, and that is considered a low estimate. Now, the traditional door-to-door approach is being replaced by the use of satellites and drones, which is a much more effective — and faster — way of gathering information.
New machine takes on the plastic waste problem
One of the biggest environmental problems facing humanity is plastic waste. Every year, 260 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced globally, killing off marine life. French actor Samuel Le Bihan and a self-taught inventor, Christofer Costes, created a low-tech machine that converts plastic waste into fuel — namely, diesel and petrol. This is proving to be a useful solution to the planet’s plastic waste crisis. It can also provide fuel for remote communities in developing countries.
The machine — named Chrysalis — is fed plastic pellets that are placed in closed reactor, where they are broken down at a high temperature of 450C to produce petrol, diesel and a carbon residue that can be used in crayons.
Mobile technology tackles crop shortages
In Kenya’s Nayanza Province, corn is the staple food for more than 90 percent of the area’s population. Drought, pests and other factors can be a serious threat to the community’s livelihood. To address this problem, improved seed varieties have been developed, but the problem persisted.
Researchers hypothesized that the reason is the fraudulent replacement of new seed varieties with sub-par seeds and offered a solution: each seed packet would be equipped with a scratch-off certification code. They found that farmers are willing to pay more for certified seeds that come directly from the seed company. Farmers would verify each packet by sending a text to a special phone number, and receive a message that the code is valid. Nearly 1,000 pounds of seed were purchased for this project, which proved that mobile technology can combat agricultural shortages and thus hunger. This technique has already been successfully incorporated by the Kenya Seed Company.
App saves crops in Africa
African coders are turning to technology to prevent hunger. Africa currently has 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. To solve this, young technologists invented AgriPredict, an app that helps farmers identify diseases and pests, including the armyworm, which eats crops and is responsible for detrimental crop loss in sub-Saharan Africa, and Tuta absoluta, the pest known as the tomato leaf minor. AgriPredict can also offer predictions regarding pest invasions.
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