The triage problem. That's a hard problem for reasons that I won't go through.

Map out the right path for the world but also to start thinking about political triage.

Refusing to prioritize, dealing mainly with the most publicized problems, is wrong. Imagine doctors at a perpetually overrun hospital refusing to perform triage on casualties, merely attending patients as they arrived and fast tracking those whose families made the most fuss.

By making aid conditional on economic reform and democratic transition, however, the international community risks political triage. It should instead focus on financial assistance that blunts Egyptians frustrations and that contributes to building the institutions that will facilitate the transition toward democracy.

Such anonymity also holds for those who are left untreated in triage the sorting of casualties when natural or man made disasters strike. But, for the same reason, efficiency rules often do meet with protest when they are used or proposed for rationing medical services in everyday medicine.

They were quite proud of the fact that you know, before the dust clears, if some soldier has been hurt they will have collected him or her, they will have brought him back, they will be getting world class triage emergency care faster than you and I would be getting it if we were hurt in a car accident in a major city in the United States.

Two thirds of the world may not have access to the latest smartphone, but local electronic shops are adept at fixing older tech using low cost parts. Vinay Venkatraman explains his work in technology crafts, through which a mobile phone, a lunchbox and a flashlight can become a digital projector for a village school, or an alarm clock and a mouse can be melded into a medical device for local triage.