All around me I can hear the clack of keyboard keys, thoughts moving only as fast as your laptop will let them.

Sorry, all this talk about changing the world is making me alliterative.

Let me give you an idea of the people gathered here. Already I've seen people from ABC, CNN, The Christian Science Monitor, and that was only in the morning. I also saw someone from Google, and there's a host of people here from Nokia, who are showing off a fancy new mobile device that looks like a super all-in-one camera, GPS device with Internet access, wifi, and also, it works as a phone.

Note that I am not above shameless product placement if that product is a cool looking gadget.

Flannery, Bowyer and Polak
(Image Courtesy of Pop!Tech.)

Rounding out this morning's sessions, Jessica Flannery, creator of Kiva.org, talked about microloans and microfinance.

Ok, now before you doze off or go read another blog, stay with me.

The whole idea here is how to find creative ways to solve the world's problems, right?

If there's one thing most people do to make themselves feel better, its giving money to charity. Now, yes, most charities are doing good work and have been for years. But have you ever wondered where your money goes, then Kiva.org may be interesting.

Here's how microloans work: instead of sending massive amounts of money to third world countries, impoverished communities or struggling organizations, why not just give other people money directly?

Microloans are typically small, sometimes between $100 - $500. Flannery's site is one of a growing number in the microloan world. Here's proof she's getting somewhere - she and her husband were featured on Oprah. You can never discount Oprah cred. Never.

The main aim of her site is to bring people who want to lend money and people who need money, into direct contact. Let's say I've got $300 I want to put to use. Using Kiva I can directly find a person - someone looking to start a business, who needs help after a disaster, or wants to start up a nonprofit. It's like a matchmaker for those who want funds, and those who have it.

The benefit is two-fold - you get to see your money directly at work, and someone else out there gets to know that somebody really believes in what they are doing.

Where Flannery believes money is the direct solution to helping solve problems, Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises, thinks we just need better systems to fix things.

Much like Flannery, Polak said the best way to address problems is taking them on directly - meaning go out, talk to the people who are in need and figure out the context of the problem.

In his case that was going to sub Saharan Africa and working on agriculture projects and helping African farmers by giving them the tools to make their farms viable.

The last presenter was Adrian Bowyer, whose work may really help change the world, or lead to the downfall of man at the hands of machines.

That's probably an overstatement on my part.

But Bowyer's organization, RepRap, is in the process of creating a machine that could replicate 3-D plastic components in the same way printers make, uh, printouts.

REPLICATORS!

I am not the most scientifically inclined, but if I understand it correctly, you could use the replicator to make...another replicator, and another, and another, which could then be used to make, well, more replicators, but also could be used for mass production.

What does this have to do with helping fight things like poverty, hunger and making other social change? Well, somewhere down the line these replicators could be used in developing nations to fabricate materials to make houses, start businesses or aid in farming.

Here's the kicker, Bowyer's replicators would be open-source, or, FREE. You offer it up like you would any software you could find online, like Firefox for instance, and people could then use the replicator software to help build their own replicator.

I don't know if that entirely makes sense, but it's pretty cool. So far they are working on a prototype that would only make things in plastic, but they're hoping to create one that could make circuitry.

That's all for now, check back in later. And remember, you can always see what's going on LIVE at the Pop!Tech Web site.

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