Hey readers! This post is a part of the 2008 Blog Action Day where bloggers around the world unite to talk about a common topic that is important to our world. This year’s topic is poverty (FYI, last year’s topic was the environment, and you can read that here) and this post will link poverty and the usual tech that is discussed here and provide possible solutions.

What poverty looks like (From Anewgreenitude.info)

The Issue

According to Wikipedia, HALF (3 billion people) of the world’s population suffers from poverty. And according to this GlobalIssues.org post those people live on less than $2.50 a day. Just pause now and think about it…

What would you do if you only lived on $2.50? Well first off, you would not even be thinking about that new iPod, or laptop, or TV, or bed, or going out for dinner, or buying a new book, or even living in that house (or apartment) that you live in. Just think…. and that isn’t just for a few people, that is for half of the world.

With only that little amount of money, one wouldn’t be able to get enough food, which results in malnutrition, they can’t have a real home, which leaves them vulnerable to others and nature, and can die because they can’t afford healthcare.

What I Think We Should Do

You, right now, are lucky, though you may not think so because of the current state of the US economy, but you are. You have a computer, you have an education, you have a job (or are a student), and those allow you to have a relatively comfortable life. Now how are you going to get 3 billion people out of poverty and into a better way of life?

I feel that the answer lies in technology. We, as users of the “cloud” can do so much. We can make donations online (Check out http://www.kiva.org/, where you can make loans to entrepreneurs in developing worlds in order to help bring them out of poverty), we can tell others about poverty through email, and we can learn about it through the Internet.

Also, if you are interested in improving your vocab while donating rice, you should check out http://freerice.com/. There, for every word you get right, 20 grains of rice is donated through the UN World Food Program. Though this isn’t poverty, hunger is definitely related to it since if you don’t have food, you can’t work, so you don’t get money.

The OLPC (Topnews.in)

We could also bring technology to developing countries and educate them through the use of them. Projects such as OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) can enable them to self-learn and get better jobs in the future and lifting them out of the poverty cycle. Other techs like the MotoFone, can enable people to bring themselves out of poverty through conducting business on a mobile cell phone.

So do something, whether it is just telling others about poverty, or donating money to poverty combating programs, that difference will help reduce poverty in our world. And by reducing poverty, we not only help those people, but also our entire world by bringing more people to a new level and enabling our society to progress forward.

Thank you for your help!