I'll spoil some of his best lines: as part of their research on how kids can teach themselves, they dropped a hardened computer kiosk in a remote rural village where "they were assured that noone had ever taught anyone anything"... and left it for a few months for the kids there to play with. They came back to see what progress was being made, and the first kids they spoke to led with "Oh, it's your machine? Good. We need more RAM and a faster CPU, please."
Is this truly a global problem that I just don't hear about because of my own media filter?
The speaker begins by noting that technology has marginal impact where schools are already good, but huge impact where schools are bad or non-existent. He then discusses how his work shows that children collaborate in learning.
Also http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html which in addition to some super cool eye candy graphs, points out the growing convergence of first-world and third-world problems.
A big ask where respondents are notorious for not RTFA, but I found both talks fascinating and hope that you do too.
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.