Apr 8th 2010 | NEW YORK | From The Economist print edition

Paul Meyer of Voxiva, an American technology firm that has set up mHealth systems in Rwanda and Peru, among other places, says that such schemes have been so successful in the developing world that they are now being adopted in the rich world too. His firm has helped the American government with its recent launch of Text4Baby, a public-health campaign to educate pregnant mothers (they receive free text messages with medical advice) that will soon become the biggest such effort in the world.