NEIL MACGREGOR:
We wanted to choose an object that would tell us about the world today and this extraordinary global world we live in, where we're all in constant contact with each other.
We thought we would go back to the beginning of the story, the way somebody in East Africa was using an object to change their life. And this is now changing the life of millions of people in the tropics. It's a solar panel which powers both a lamp and a mobile phone recharger.
And with this lamp, anybody working in a hut, living in a hut, away from main electricity, for the first time has light at night. This means they can read, they can study. It also means they don't need to have kerosene lamps. So it's better for health. With the mobile phone charger, they can sell their produce better in the local markets.
This is evening up the great divide between the city and the country among the poorest people on the planet. And the technology is of course American. The microtechnology was invented in the U.S. It's fabricated in China and sold in Africa. And it's another tool that's going to let us change the world.
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