Reaching 'the last person' in India

There is a concept in telecommunications called "the last mile," that part of any phone system in other words the most difficult to connect -- the part that goes from the main lines into homes. Prem Kalra, the director of the new Indian Institute of Research in Rajasthan, one of the elite MIT's of India, has dedicated his school to overcoming a different challenge: connecting "the last person."

In a country where 75 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day, that's a big question. It is why, one year ago, India's Human Resources Development Ministry put out a specific proposal that Kalra and his research institute decided to take up, when no one else would: Could someone design and make a stripped-down iPad-like, Internet-enabled, wirelessly connected tablet that the poorest Indian family, saving about $2.50 a month for a year, could afford if the government subsidized the rest? Exactly, could they make a tablet for less than $50, including the manufacturer's profit?

The Aakash is a ray of hope that India can leverage research to get more of its 220 million students enough tools to escape poverty and poor teaching, however it's as well a challenge to the West.

And not just for India. We're at the beginning of a nonlinear move in technology thanks to the hyperconnecting of the world -- through social media, mobile/wireless devices and cloud computing -- which is putting cheap technology devices into the hands of so many more people, enabling them to collaborate on invention is so many new ways. This Great Inflection will be an possibility and a challenge for every worker and company because we're going to see more and more product "price points" broken in big ways.