Some pundits argue that the developing world is the biggest new business opportunity and that providing technology to poorer communities drives educational and economic development. Others warn that so-called technology solutions for the developing world are really just technological colonization in disguise.

This panel discussion, moderated by David Kirkpatrick of Fortune Magazine, addresses the role of technology in the developing world, specifically how technologies can help address the divide between the rich and the poor. Nicholas Negroponte of the Media Lab at MIT, Ian Morris of AMD and Teresa Peters of Bridges.org discuss many aspects of technology in the developing world including:

• the educational opportunities of providing cost-effective computing technologies to developing nations,
• how low cost computers can be made and distributed, and
• business opportunities as opposed to charity.

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David Kirkpatrick is the senior editor for Internet and technology at Fortune Magazine, specializing in the computer and technology industries, as well as in the impact of the Internet on business and society. He writes a column, which appears weekly on fortune.com and through e-mail subscription.

Mr. Kirkpatrick is a regular commentator on CNNfn and TechTV, and has also appeared frequently as a technology industry expert on CNN and PBS. Working with other Fortune editors, he developed Brainstorm, a multi-disciplinary conference which brings together global leaders to interact and discuss the future. The conference, first held in 2001, takes place annually in Aspen and is produced in partnership with the Aspen Institute. Mr. Kirkpatrick has a B.A. in English from Amherst College, and attended art school for two years.

Iain Morris is senior vice president of the Personal Connectivity Solutions Group at AMD. He is responsible for leading the overall strategy and business activities of the group. Morris comes to AMD with more than 25 years of solid experience in the industry. Leveraging the international operations experience acquired throughout his career, Mr. Morris is also overseeing AMD's emerging markets initiative.

Mr. Morris joins AMD from Hewlett-Packard, where he was senior vice president for the Mobility and Emerging Technology group. Prior to HP, he served a 23-year tenure at Motorola as senior vice president and general manager of its Personal Communications Sector Americas Region, comprising of its cellular, advanced messaging and paging businesses in the United States and Canada. Mr. Morris was born and educated in Scotland . He holds a bachelor's degree in technology and business studies from The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.

Nicholas Negroponte is the Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding chairman of MIT's Media Laboratory. Professor Negroponte studied at MIT and has been an MIT faculty member since 1966. He was the founder of MIT's pioneering Architecture Machine Group, a combination lab and think tank responsible for many radically new approaches to the human-computer interface.

In 1995, he published Being Digital, which has been translated into over 40 languages. Professor Negroponte also serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc. and was a founder of Wired magazine.

Teresa Peters founded bridges.org in 1999 and now servers at its executive director. She is a lawyer with technical expertise and a specialization in law and policy matters related to the Internet and electronic commerce. Previously, Ms. Peters was an official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) based in Paris, where she led the efforts of the Committee on Information, Computers and Communications Policy in the areas of authentication, cryptography and security of information systems. Ms. Peters managed the international negotiations for the 1998 OECD Ministerial Declaration on Authentication for Electronic Commerce, as well as the 1997 OECD Cryptography Policy Guidelines. She was in charge of the OECD project on illegal and harmful content on the Internet and worked on other information society issues including privacy and consumer protection.

Prior to joining the OECD, Ms. Peters worked with a project of the Ohio Super-computing Center on legal issues related to electronic data interchange and electronic public records, and she has been involved in civil and human rights efforts in Latin America, Africa, Europe and North America. In the U.S., she worked for a law firm specializing in prisoner rights cases and federal civil rights issues. A native of Ohio, Ms. Peters holds a Juris Doctorate from the Washington College of Law of American University and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Ohio State University.

This program is from the Software 2005 series.

For Team ITC:

• Description editor: Darusha Wehm
• Post-production audio engineer: Paul Figgiani