Today I made a presentation at Singularity University, NASA Ames California about the 6th goal in the MDG. Target 6B states in summary: Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Development_Goals) As of today, it is estimated that only 42% of people worldwide who are living with HIV/AIDS have access to treatment.
In sub-sahara Africa, there are many USAID and other NGO initiatives to grant access to treatment but most candidates do not avail themselves of the opportunities because they do not know their status. Most people only get tested when they already have symptoms of full blown AIDS. Despite the spread of the disease, people living with HIV/AIDS experience stigmatization and inadequate support from society and even loved ones and thus they sometimes lose the fight for their lives when they need it most.
I believe that we are experiencing exponential growths in technology and the dissemination of these technologies would be global because to global access to the internet. As Sub Sahara African (SSA) countries fix their energy problems, the use of internet services including smart phones will become ubiquitous.
Sub Sahara Africa is uniquely positioned to benefit from the green energy revolution due to the lack of on-grid electricity in most areas. By 2020, solar and wind energy solutions will come cheap and in a box. Solving the energy problem will grant SSA cheap access to internet networks and platforms where people can get world class education from the comfort of their homes.
Innovations in 3-D printing and rapid automated manufacturing (http://www.weareacasa.com/) would revolutionize home construction and by 2025, the average time to build a functional home in SSA would be seven (7) days.
Trends in bioinformatics and biotechnology will produce biovores- disease eating cells- which will work with white blood cells to actively target and destroy disease bearing viruses and organisms. Respiravores - red blood cells- and regenerative cells will be created by bio engineering to replace damaged cells and speed up healing and regeneration of damaged tissues. By 2025 crowd sourced platforms like GoogleHealth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Health) would have user reported health information and high value medical information that people would make intelligent medical decisions on common problems.
Building off these technologies, artificial intelligence through robotics and super computing, would allow the creation of intelligent primary care doctors who can diagnose illness with the aid of reports from user home test kits and symptoms analysis over smart phones. All these and more would be available by mid 2030's but to be part of this revolution SSA has to make tremendous progress in fixing her energy problems within the next decade.
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