Six years ago, I was in Saigon, trying to cross the busiest intersection in that overcrowded city. There were thousands of motor scooters careening in every direction, heedless of safety. There were also thousands of cell phones in one hand of these maniacal drivers, adding to the already dangerous conditions.

What was astonishing, in the midst of this chaos, was the heavy use of technology linking those cell phone-toting hands to their personal and business colleagues. In a city ruined by decades of war, financially unable to invest in critical infrastructure, technology was filling a huge communications gap.

Four years later, I visited Ethiopia. As we flew over the high, rugged plateaus, we saw tiny villages, completely isolated except by footpaths. The mountainsides were denuded of trees because women and girls had cut them down to fuel their cooking fires and heat their homes.

Every place we went, I saw little girls bent double under the weight of huge bundles of twigs-all they could find for fuel-they were lugging to their villages. The country is rural, agricultural and mountainous. Power lines will never crisscross the countryside as they do here in Colorado. But, the government is distributing low-cost alternative batteries that can help families cook their food. Imagine what this simple technology will mean for children so heavily burdened with assuring their families' welfare.

Technology is improving lives around the world. But, it is also leaving many behind. Just read the American business magazines. Their stories are dramatically different from what they published several years ago. Today, they are mostly about e-commerce and technological revolutions and the need for businesses to embrace them or pass into oblivion.

Consumers now have the tools to make informed decisions, to bargain on price. A couple of months ago, for example, I had to buy a new car. Armed with pricing information gained from the Internet, I was able to purchase the 1999 model of the car I'd bought in 1993 for $1000 less than I'd paid 6 years ago. What an advantage-if you have access to technology.

Technology users also participate in rapid change and speedy communications. In the 1980's, an important innovation took 10 years to be adopted elsewhere. Today, it is transferred at Internet speed-instantaneously. In 1995, according to Business Week, 300 million emails were sent per day in the United States. By 2002, there will be 8 billion emails sent daily.

These technology leaps have transformed global business and communications. Those who have access to this technology, and learn to use it, will succeed. Those who don't will be left behind. In the world today, that means that those who have resources will be able to use technology. The poor will not.

Fortune recently wrote about a 14-year-old Indian girl who can't take science classes because only boys are allowed to study science. So, this enterprising young woman leased a cell phone which she rents to her fellow villagers on a per call basis. She is saving her money so she can study computer science. She is determined she won't be left out.

These examples raise some critical issues for Colorado and the United States. The income gap is once again widening between the developing world and the United States. Access to the Internet in many countries is severely limited because of the expense of local telephone calls.

Pure self-interest requires that we promote the economic development of poor countries. They are our future markets. They produce many of our low cost goods. Our well-being over the long-term depends on theirs. More importantly, as caring human beings, we cannot sit by while technology creates a growing opportunity gap at home and abroad. We cannot watch poor children go hungry and poor economies wither because technology has made them obsolete.

We, in technology-rich Colorado, need to take a stronger interest in the ability of young girls in India, of poor children in Denver, of students and businesspeople in rural Colorado to benefit from the wealth of opportunity and ideas modern technology brings. If we don't, we will all be poorer, not just those who can't afford to participate.