A venture fund known as S.E.VEN (Social Equity Venture Fund) recently announced a novel competition for ideas to address an important issue in emerging economies: namely how to rate possible investment opportunities in potentially higher risk emerging economies. Their idea is to create an index to rate possible investments with the aim of increasing the flow of investment in these regions. While the aim of the competition is noble itself, what's most unique is HOW they will run the competition.

pre-paid cellphones being used to move money into rural African communities without banking systems - phones are credited in cities (by migrant workers) and debited in villages with money passed to family i.e., prepaid phone minutes = currency

One of my favorite examples suggesting the possible revival of amateur science is CyberTracker, "a software program that allows conservationists to record their observations in the field on handheld computers linked to global positioning system, or GPS, units." Scientists and trackers recently used the system to research the impact on an Ebola outbreak on the gorilla population in the Congo, and have also used it to study other animals. As Wired News reported in 2004,

For a project that could be on the very cutting edge of renewable energy, this one is actually decidedly low tech--and that's the point.