The International Herald Tribune recently reported on the study "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use," conducted by the U.N. and Vodafone foundations.

While cynics may argue that the Vodafone group has a keen interest in seeing mobile phone usage increase in developing countries, the study offers many inspiring stories of how activists and development experts in the field are using mobile technologies in innovative ways.

CNet/TechRepublic is publishing a series of photos from Colombia's Computadores Para Educar (Computers for Education), whereby old computers are refurbished for schools and schoolchildren. Instead of being tossed to the landfill and heavy metals contaminate the water table, computers are given new life to those who need the resources most.

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IDG writer and TechSoup contributor Agam Shah has an article on InfoWorld, Networking Across the Digital Divide, that takes a look at digital inclusion programs around San Francisco. One of the organizations profiled in the article is Community Technology Network, where TechSoup's Kami Griffiths serves as a director. The article helps underscore the importance of such programs, especially in a city where the topic of the digital divide can fall under the radar.

A recent Economist piece, Bringing the Poor Online, details the challenges of expanding Internet access in developing countries. The success of mobile phones in these countries, it notes, is difficult to repeat with Internet access due to a number of costs mobile-phone carriers don’t have to face.

The Economist has an interesting profile of Yossi Vardi, an Israeli technologist and investor credited with helping to build Israel's technology industry who is turning his attention to how technology can be used to solve social problems, despite the skepticism of many of his contemporaries.

His message: only a happy few are benefiting from Israel's amazing high-tech boom. “We have become two countries: a high-tech one with few children and very high incomes, and a poor one with lots of kids,” he says.

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A recent CNN article examines how designers and engineers are increasingly taking the needs of developing countries into consideration in their product designs:

Imagine taking the industrial design smarts behind the iPod and applying it to the far more basic technology needs of the extremely poor. In the past, few top designers would have bothered. But that's changing.

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From India, the International Herald Tribune reports how a new site called Babajob.com is taking social networking one step further by using online networks to help connect people in Bangalore to jobs, even if the job-seekers lack access to technology.

The Washington Post reports on a recent study that has led some computer science researchers to examine whether changing the way software is designed will encourage more women to go into the field of computer science.

With the holiday season approaching, why not consider giving a laptop to two kids? Boingboing reports on a special offer that allows you to buy two computers – one for a child you know, and another for a child abroad:

Articles about women in technology often begin by lamenting the perceived lack of women in the field, but in truth there are many women working — and thriving — in the technology sector.