For design engineers, the ultimate goal of development is a superior product, unmatched in innovation. For test or automated test equipment (ATE) engineers, the development of that same product might have very different ramifications – more often than not, innovation is required to test innovation. Luckily, the test and measurement industry has supplied highly accurate and responsive instrumentation for years, allowing the necessary verification checks to be made. There are many different platforms on which these measurements can be taken, and thus begins a significant amount of comparison shopping to meet the design needs of the test systems.

While mobile phones can have a great impact on the lives of rural people in least developed countries (LDCs) especially grassroots ICT initiatives can fill the void that large mobile phone companies cannot. These new mobile-phone infrastructures are largely poised as oligopolies, protected from the threat of new entrants by high licensing fees and reserved frequency allotments. While they serve a large segment of the population and provide a great basis for ICTs, they are highly centralised and hierarchical and thus unlikely likely to serve smaller segments, remote areas or non-mainstream interests; nor can they provide specific local and rural solutions. This gap therefore opens up a multitude of opportunities in ICT4D, particularly in smaller rural markets.