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Report from Davos: Bridging the Digital Divide, by David Kirkpatrick
Corporate leaders, government officials, and researchers at the conference shared ideas on how technology can improve the lives of the world’s poor Wiring developing countries-and its poorer citizens-has two virtues. First, since information is power, finding ways to get better information systems-think cellphones, PCs, PDAs, and yet-to-be-invented hybrids-to the world?s disenfranchised will give them greater political clout and financial opportunities. It?s the way to ...
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- Fortune
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From a handout to a hand up, by Alison Maitland
For more than 40 years, Citigroup has supported micro-finance initiatives as a form of philanthropy. Last year, however, it decided to look at them as a business opportunity as well. It appointed a senior banker to develop services and products for micro-lending programmes, initially in Mexico and India. Full article available here. ...
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- The Finacial Times
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Microsoft bets on Africa’s IT future, by Scarlet Pruitt
?The company has also invested a hefty amount to establish information and communication technology (ICT) training centers and develop local language versions of its software in Zulu and Swahili, for example. Full article available here. ...
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- IDG News Service
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Gillette India shareholder seeks deal, by Khozem Merchant
Gillette has signalled its ambitions by selling non-core assets and launching products such as a landmark razor that can be cleaned without running water; millions of Indian consumers lack access to tapped water. Full article available here. ...
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- The Financial Times
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Can tiny science bring big solutions to world’s poor?, by Catherine Brahic
Nanotechnologies could, for instance, help filter water, provide cheap, clean energy, rapidly diagnose diseases, make information and communication technologies affordable to developing economies, and make food production cheaper and more efficient. Full article available here. ...
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- SciDev.Net
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MIT?s Nicholas Negroponte pushes a cheap PC for the rest of the world
The low-cost computer will have a 14-inch color screen, AMD chips, and will run Linux software, Mr. Negroponte said during an interview Friday with Red Herring at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. AMD is separately working on a cheap desktop computer for emerging markets. It will be sold to governments for wide distribution...Major companies from Hewlett-Packard to Microsoft to Dupont, facing saturated markets in the richest industrial countries, have show...
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- Red Herring
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Tiny Loans Stimulate the Appetite for More, by Betsy Cummings
It used to be that a $50 microloan to start an embroidery kiosk or other modest enterprise was a gateway out of poverty for women in poor countries. Now, some of them are telling aid groups that that is no longer enough. Rather, they want serious money - in some cases, several thousand dollars - to build small businesses, hire employees and establish themselves in a developing marketplace. After almost three decades, the microloan movement has created a global network o...
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- The New York Times
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Poverty tops Davos summit agenda
Earlier this year I entered for the first time a favela (slum) in Brazil, and I have to say I was really moved,’ pharmaceutical chief Daniel Vasella, a co-chairman of the Forum’s 2005 annual meeting, said. Vasella - who heads Novartis, the Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant that has enjoyed eight consecutive years of record multi-billion dollar earnings - opted to argue the case for ’the three billion people who still live on less than $2 a day. ...
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- Aljazeera.Net
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