(Fortune Magazine) -- The winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize is Muhammad Yunus, founder of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank and a pioneer of microfinance. Grameen lends small sums to farmers and entrepreneurs. The idea is to help the poor not by giving them a handout but by giving them financial tools they can use to create wealth.
Tech and other entrepreneurs all over the world--some of them with big companies, others starting out from scratch--have brought something of the same spirit to the innovations on these pages. And however complex the underlying technology, these are all inexpensive devices that help the poorest help themselves. 
