Mobile-phone companies and aid agencies have talked for years about deploying feature phones, coupled with basic text information services about the weather and crop pricing, to empower poor people in undeveloped parts of the world. Now, the Grameen Foundation is taking that idea to the opposite, high-tech extreme.

David Edelstein is using technology to battle poverty, and his weapon of choice is the mobile phone. Edelstein is director of the Grameen Technology Center and vice president of technology programs at Grameen Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit that supports microfinance practitioners worldwide. Edelstein holds the top technology job, guiding the foundation's efforts to create innovative and sustainable technology approaches to benefit the world's poor.

Google has launched its SMS service and a new SMS-based classifieds system in Uganda, in collaboration with the Grameen Foundation and mobile operator MTN Uganda.