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Just in different capacities.

The technological innovations of today come from the top minds trained in the top schools (all of whom have access to, among other things, laptops). Their world changing innovations and inventions represent the epitome of knowledge and the upper echelon of educated minds. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the uneducated masses that lack the knowledge to crawl out of that slippery and deep box in which they are living. In developing countries, they may not even know they are living in a box, and therefore that there is anything outside the "box." It is this knowledge gap that must be closed in order for the suffering to escape a stagnant life and, quite literally, to start thinking outside the box.

Knowledge really is power. If you took Donald Trump's money away and forced him to work retail, how long would it take him to earn his next million? Less than a year? Two years? So then perhaps all we need to do is make sure every single person in the world goes to grade school and eventually college, right? If you have the know-how, you can increase your quality of life. Paid for tuition and mandatory attendance for all children should do the trick. But here in the states, attendance is mandatory through grade twelve and almost any child can get a student loan for college. Yet poverty exists. Though it is certain that developing countries that don't have these privileges are much worse off than ones who do. What about countries who haven't passed a Higher Education Act? Who don't have government subsidized loans?

For instance, in Gambia the literacy rate is less than thirty eight percent, the per capita income is under $400, and there is a high infant mortality rate. So how do you not become part of these statistics? I attended software classes with a very kind and intelligent student from Gambia. He is doing well and from a country that is not doing well. One of the noted professors in our biology department, Safaa Al-Hamdani, is from Iraq, one of the more chaotic and volatile places on the planet. He was noted for the Books for Baghdad project that delivered over 11,000 books and educational supplies to Baghdad University. These are people who have escaped the statistics through a quest for knowledge. And although technology played a part in educating these men, there was no magical equipment or new wave machinery that transported them to their current station in life. It was a simple human decision on their part.

The way out of poverty is knowledge. Technology is not the key, but it certainly can help us along the way if used properly. We are the key. Each and every person helping each other and ourselves by making compassionate decisions to strive for knowledge.

There exist governments, caste systems, and any number of other obstacles that attempt to keep us from thinking ourselves out of the box. When thinking about perseverance in the face
of poverty, I recall a man who was born a slave, fought for the education of blacks in the early 1900's, and finally formed the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. His name was
Booker T. Washington. And he did not own a cell phone.

CNN Top 25 non medical innovations - http://www.eclectecon.com/post s/1105528569.shtml
One Laptop per Child - http://www.laptopgiving.org/en /index.php
Gambia - http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/b gn/5459.htm

Learn more about this author, Shawn Bailey.
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