Tech firms offer solutions in developing countries

[...] residents' access to health care was much worse than he was used to in the United States.

Nesbit recalls riding his bike more than 50 miles to meet with patients and aid workers in a very rural area of the Southern African country and being shocked that the cell phone signal there was better than in his Stanford dorm room.

[...] Nesbit founded San Francisco-based Medic Mobile, which provides communications-related services to 6,000 aid workers in 16 countries, allowing patients to communicate with doctors in the countries' main hospitals without making harrowing journeys.

Leaders there invited him and representatives from 29 other companies to present their technology solutions to global problems at the USRio+2.0 conference, which started at Stanford's Graduate School of Business Thursday.

Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones, an assistant secretary of state, said the Stanford conference is a chance for government officials and representatives from tech companies, universities and nongovernmental organizations to share ideas prior to the meeting in Brazil.

Using mobile monitoring technology, the company collects data on the growing conditions and tree health at individual farms and tracks the nuts through the supply chain.

Nesbit, whose Medic Mobile team worked with the State Department to coordinate text-message emergency response after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, pointed out that while only 1 percent of Haitians have landline phones or Internet access, more than 75 percent have mobile phones.