Critics in today's world often say that computers and technology are impeding the social skills of the very young. But Zoo U, a computer game for children, helps kids develop the skills they need such as empathy, impulse control, and communication.

Concerned with colony collapse syndrome in honey bees worldwide, scientists, farmers and tech companies teamed up in Australia to create a micro-sensor that collects data on the bee's environment.

Microfinance started to help reduce world poverty but, in the long run, without bank accounts it is hard for beginning entrepreneurs to really get going and to help the economy. Now that paying is possible through cellular phones, more people will have the opportunity to have a bank account and hopefully cause a decrease in poverty.

New water management technology implemented along the Columbia has significantly helped the fish population - specifically salmon - return to healthy numbers and has restored much of the community and industry that revolves around the river, including for native peoples.

Agencies across the corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors are recruiting ideas from the public by offering prizes for solving challenges. Prize incentives have spurred innovation for centuries, but fell out of favor as the preferred method in the 1800s. Now, prize-based incentives are back, in part because of a flood of new philanthropic money, and because prizes cast a wider net to a largely more educated and tech-savvy global population.

What about the world’s poorest, for whom new, expensive gadgets are out of reach - what types of innovation would be most beneficial for them? Through “frugal innovation”, people are designing products specifically to meet the needs of the world’s poorest citizens.

In Iowa, the “redistricting” of the state’s legislative and congressional boundaries is done by mapmakers who abide by nonpartisan metrics that all sides agree are fair — a seemingly revolutionary concept in the high-stakes decennial rite of redistricting.

Around the world, a new way of teaching and learning is gaining traction – and seeing results. Rooted in educational theory from the likes of Socrates, Piaget, and Montessori, this method is led by students’ curiosity and ability to learn and grow independently; essentially, the students control their own learning. Such methods make success more attainable in places like Matamoros, Mexico, who has seen exceptional improvement from students who experience learning this way.

The Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies provides a "blueprint" for peaceful and democratic revolution, busting myths about the process of nonviolent revolt and helping dissidents in countries around the world to accomplish political goals, such as fighting corruption or protecting the environment.

Two columns on how Iran is treating its massive epidemic of injecting drug use by tackling it as a health problem, effectively lowering H.I.V. rates among drug users using an approach to drugs known as harm reduction.