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R. Srikumar is Senior Vice President, Head Portfolio Group at Mphasis.

As technology advances at an unprecedented rate, it is easy to assume that all countries and regions have equal access to the latest innovations. However, that is not always the case. Emerging markets often lack the infrastructure and resources necessary to keep up with technological advancements. But instead of being left behind, these regions have embraced “leapfrog innovation” to catch up and even surpass more developed markets.

Leapfrog innovation refers to the process of bypassing traditional technologies and adopting newer, more advanced technologies to meet the specific needs of emerging markets. This approach has increasingly become the norm in some areas of Southeast Asia and Africa, where the lack of infrastructure, limited resources and rapidly growing populations have made traditional development approaches difficult to implement.

In science fiction, space crews are often spared the boredom and inconvenience of long-distance space travel by being placed into a state of suspended animation. Now this goal may have come a step closer after scientists showed that hibernation can be artificially triggered in rodents using ultrasonic pulses.

The advance is seen as significant because the technique was effective in rats – animals that do not naturally hibernate. This raises the prospect that humans may also retain a vestigial hibernation circuit in the brain that could be artificially reactivated.