The CGI meeting this year can roughly be broken into two parts: discussion and celebration of past achievements, and attempting to anticipate where we’ll go from here in solving the world’s biggest problems.

Two sessions I just attended focused on technology and innovation and in both cases the discussion inevitably led to a question on everybody’s mind here: What’s the next big idea?

Opinions vary, obviously, but there were some common themes I picked up on. The importance of public-private partnerships was one. The UK’s Secretary of State for International Development stressed a need for greater communication between the public and private sectors in tackling a host of issues. He also contended that the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals will be nearly impossible to meet without continued innovation, while identifying three areas where the private sector can play an important role: product development, program delivery, and financing development.

On another panel, Former Vice President Al Gore spoke of sustainable capitalism as they key to addressing the threats of global warming and climate change. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of the World Bank Group spoke about the need for developing countries to be able to manage crises on their own without waiting for the assistance of other countries.

In two separate panels, the revolutionizing power of cell phones was discussed. Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director of Grameen Bank said that giving people the power to use cell phones to deal with everything from healthcare to financial concerns will be a potential game-changer. In another discussion, Angela F. Braly, President and CEO of WellPoint, Inc. specifically named “telemedicine”’s potential to bring increased healthcare information to rural communities. Even though we’ve written before here on the ONE Blog about the opportunities provided by cell phones, it still never ceases to amaze me that something we in the US take for granted still has the potential to facilitate so much good for so many people.

I’ll have more soon.

-Chris Scott

UPDATE: Here’s one of the panels on innovation.