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Mobile Phones Will Not Save the Poorest of the Poor
Entrepreneurs, businesses, NGOs, and governments exalt mobile technology as a game-changing tool to fight global poverty. But what if our eagerness to connect the world is inadvertently exacerbating the global economic divide? The cost of cellphone-based services is hurting huge swaths of the developing world.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Are Mobile Solutions Overhyped?
Are mobiles just another high-tech solution to what are essentially systemic and deeply rooted problems? Are mobile solutions for combating global poverty overhyped?
- Categories
- Technology
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From the Sun (Bypassing the Grid) to the BoP Consumer
Taking its name from the amount of time it takes sunlight to reach earth (yes, 8 minutes and 19 seconds), Eight19 is one of the many companies working to deliver solar energy to the 1.6 billion people of the BoP in need.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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Can The iPad Revolutionize Rural Agriculture?
The iPad’s fairly steep price has kept it firmly entrenched in the developed world. That’s starting to change, however, as evidenced by efforts from Exprima Media and coffee importer Sustainable Harvest to bring the iPad to coffee co-ops and farmers in East Africa, Mexico, and South America.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- supply chains
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Decentralized, Distributed and Disruptive: The New Diseconomies of Scale
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, economies of scale have ruled the day, with massive investments in power plants, pipelines, factories, and transmission lines to name a few. But increasingly, the technologies of tomorrow will be decentralized, distributed in character and disruptive to incumbent firms and institutions.
- Categories
- Environment, Technology
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Mobile Money Payments: Why It’s Time to Move From P2P to Me2Me
Mobile money providers should embrace Me2Me systems, that is, easy-to-use commitment savings platforms that help map how people think about their long-term needs and money. In the customer’s mind, each date would be associated with a purpose, such as paying off school fees, rent, farm equipment or other long-term purchases and expenses.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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Best Ideas of 2011: Innovating for Life New, Frontiers for Development Communications
The line between advocacy and journalism blurred more in 2011. For example, the Gates Foundation reaffirmed its support for the Guardian’s Global Development web hub to the tune of $2.5 million. The good news for development communications is that many digital media tools are well within the reach of those working on nonprofit budgets.
- Categories
- Technology
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Dispelling the Top Five Mobile Money Myths
I like talking about how to build mobile money networks, how people use it, what additional functionality can be built on it, and how it might give people more opportunities to improve their lives. But I often find myself side-tracked into slaying mobile money myths. Here are five concerns that I wish people didn’t lock into quite so quickly.
- Categories
- Technology