Augmented reality does not seem, at first thought, to be an appropriate technology for helping the poor. Considering though that over half of homeless people have a mobile phone already we felt the need to stay ahead of the adoption curve. So we developed the Beehive Local layer on Layar. It helps social service providers in the field to locate nearby emergency food, shelter and medical help.
In use, you select the type of service and range, then pan the device around your surroundings. Icons appear in the direction of nearby services. Layar provides an augmented reality application within which you can make various data sets available. One Economy already had a large database of social services so we tapped into that. While perhaps a little impractical for now, it demos great and maybe will spark other ideas too.