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For four days a year, Camden, Maine, a sleepy little fishing village is known best for something other than hosting the U.S. Toboggan Championship. Every October, the Pop!Tech Conference rolls in and
brings with it around 700 of the most varied trendsetters, from high-powered corporate executives and professors to struggling artists and musicians. They all try to think as off the beaten path about how to solve some of the world's biggest dilemmas.

"Pop!Tech got started as a way to look at the social impact of
technology, not so much about the gadgets but what they mean for us," says Andrew Zolli of Pop!Tech. "What does it mean to be connected? Over the course of the last 13 years, we've changed though, pretty dramatically, and expanded our interest not just about information technology but about all these other forms of technology: medicine, health, energy, space travel. And what is it these technologies mean for how we're going to address some of the most important problems on Earth."

While the conference focuses on discussing ideas and concepts, some folks do present new inventions and gadgets they hope will help change the world. One such gadget is the goodie bag given out to all attendees.

A collaboration born out of last year's conference between bag
maker Timbuk2 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor of Architecture Sheila Kennedy, the bag has solar cells on its exterior. The solar cells charge the battery inside in order either
charge other devices.

"We think that for the first time we're on the track of an extremely
affordable, portable source of renewable light and clean energy that
can be broadly accessible, so we're starting in the developing world," says Kennedy.

The bag is being field tested, among other places, in underdeveloped communities in Africa. Such communities are also where UCLA Electrical Engineering Professor Aydogan Ozcan hopes to bring his microscope for cell phones which can take a blood sample and in minutes may help determine whether someone has an illness, from malaria to HIV.

"Instead of imaging the cells through a bunch of lenses, we detect the shadows of the cells," says Ozcan. "They contain these textures that are like the fingerprint of the cell from which you can tell its type, if there's a deformation."

These creators often bring their prototypes to Pop!Tech, hoping to draw on the expertise of the crowd to help determine how to have the inventions impact the largest number of people.