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Broadpeak will for the first time showcase its nanoCDN technology in Latin America at TB Connect LATAM. This new CDN (content delivery network) techology " leverages subscribers' home networks to reduce infrastructure investments for network service providers," essentially utilizing equipment already in subscribers households to minimize the need for some sort of additional tower. These sorts of technologies are necessary for the development of technology markets in Latin America, where a lack of infrastructure remains one of the most significant barriers preventing a break-through in online and technological usage by the populous.

Mexico's president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto has asked the United States to extend the focus of the United State's relationship with Mexico beyond the war on drugs and illegal immigration. He asks that the two countries bolster economic ties and investments in energy. In general, the United States seems to portray a very negative image of Mexico that focuses solely on violence rather than emphasizing the ways in which the countries could develop together.

This article explains a new road that has been built that is working to revitalize a road for farmers. This road creates a direct path to the super market in order to boost earnings for the farmers. It was funded by the United States supported "Millennium Challenge Cooperation."

More new stuff for me to learn about, thanks, Elizabeth! It's amazing that lack of reliable roads can be a stumbling block to development in the 21st century, but often this is the legacy of colonial regimes that in previous eras weren't interested in internal connections among the people, but in building only what was necessary in terms of transportation infrastructure to extract indigenous resources and get them exported (a problem in Africa as well). I didn't know anything about the Millennium Challenge Corporation, so began looking up some info. One interesting fact is that they are rated as the most "transparent" US agency and 9th most transparent out of 72 in the world by "Publish What You Fund: The Global Campaign for Aid Transparency" [one of 13 organizations marked "fair," the second highest category -- only two came in at the top category]. http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/index/2012-index/ The pressure for transparency: a consequence of the Internet, since the cost of "publishing" the information is minimal? It will be interesting to see how well the federal and state governments at home and abroad do on this score in the coming years.

Rosling is a global public health expert, and is passionate about how statistical data should inform our understanding of global regions, individual nations in comparison with each other, and he challenges the possibly erroneous conventional wisdom about differences between "first world" and "third world" nations in terms of social markers that exist. This item is also useful background for understanding the foundational aspects of any area of the globe, and it also points you to relevant data sources.

This animated data software is available at http://www.gapminder.org/ It could make a great format for your final project in lieu of a more conventional paper -- something to think about?