The most exciting tech here for the short term has to be the LED lights. I have one of those LED keychains, and it was actually brighter than my AAA maglite!!!

Kids in 3rd world agrarian societies have a tough time tending crops during the day, and then hitting the books at night with no electricity. With a small LED fixture and reflector, kids could do all their schoolwork in decent light with minimal power, maybe collected by solar cell and stored in small battery at night.

That's a great application idea, Ernie!