"Today we're adopting m-health apps that turn smartphones into mobile medical devices," CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent said Thursday at the conference, touting the BSR report's estimate that mobile health apps could save $21 billion a year in health care costs just in the United States.

Among the survey's other findings was a projection that wireless education technology could help boost test scores, accelerate learning times, and deliver broadband access to the estimated 25 percent of U.S. school children who are without it. In the financial arena, wireless technology could work to serve the so-called unbanked or under-banked.

The report also examined the impact of wireless technology on community empowerment, noting the key role that mobile devices played in organizing the Arab Spring protests last year.

Largent admitted that wireless technology is no "panacea" for the world's most pressing problems, but he and Clinton both emphasized that the interconnectedness that wireless enables as an integral component of any solution.

"[A]s any protester in Cairo's Tahrir Square will tell you, closing the information gap is a prerequisite for positive social change," Largent said.