On 25 November 2011, Adrianus Akid, an indigenous farmer in a rural Indonesian village, sent a text about a damaged bridge to RuaiSMS. RuaiSMS is a mobile news service that turns cell phones into a new communication channel for indigenous people in West Kalimantan, including Sungai Enau, about 12 miles from Pontianak, the capital city of Indonesia’s West Kalimantan Province.

I attended this year’s South By Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) to interact with industry leaders and explore interactive technologies we could use to help people in developing countries access and share information in new ways.

For the unfamiliar, SXSWi is a five-day extravaganza of panels, parties, free food, meetings planned and moments serendipitous, accelerators, keynotes and one massive tech trade show. Few events bring together such an amazing array of mobile and digital thinkers and innovators.

Tomato farmers all over Jordan face a daily challenge. Should they collect their daily crops and send them to the central vegetable markets without knowing the market availability or price? If there is a big stock of tomatoes in that market, high supply and stable demand reduce the prices. Sometimes there aren't enough buyers and the produce goes to waste. Since there are no tomato processing facilities in Jordan, the result is a direct loss to Jordanian farmers.