NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Electronic Currency: Malawi

In mid-September, cell phone users on Malawi’s Telecom Networks (TNM) received a text message saying With TNM you can now recharge your friends mobile using TNM direct top up service. Just use the following command: *112*phone number*recharge pin*. Its that easy What does this mean? Well, TNM users, for the most part, are on a pay-as-you-go system--when you need more minutes, you buy scratch-off cards with a code to punch in for additional credit. TNM has also lo...

Source

Emeka Okafor (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Microfinance – Not a Gold Mine, but Saving Livelihoods

2005 is the UN Year of Microcredit Microfinance is widely viewed as a panacea for poverty alleviation and development; claims of income-generation activities and near-perfect returns on low-interest loans to the poor abound. However, this is only half of the story. A recently-completed research project concludes that the overwhelming majority of microfinance institutions (MFIs) are at pains to break even. This is le...

Source

AllAfrica.com (link opens in a new window)

Africa’s grey market VoIP operators are coming out into the light as attitudes and legislation change. The emergence of a VoIP service providers sector could prove almost as significant for Africa as the earlier emergence of independent ISPs. Because beyond the mobile companies, it has been the entrepreneurial energy and lobbying of ISPs that has driven regulatory change in many countries. The emergence of the newly legalised VoIP service providers (or those who hover in a legal ’no-m...

Source

AllAfrica.com

Mobile companies may make the most money by going downscale

When it comes to sexy mobile phones, the stars of the moment are multimedia wonders such as the new RAZR V3x handset from Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp.’s top-of-the-line N-90 camera phone with Carl Zeiss optics. Yet for all the attention they grab, these pricey gizmos are a sliver of the 800 million unit-per-year mobile-phone business. Increasingly, the real action is at the unglamorous end of the scale, among bare-bones Nokia and Motorola models priced under $50. Sales of such phones, whic...

Source

BusinessWeek (link opens in a new window)

Getting connected in Rural India

The tech market in Bangalore may be racing ahead, but it is a very different story for India’s 700 million farmers. Spencer Kelly has been to Northern India to see how plans to bring technology to rural areas are working. A tranquil, green landscape, a people who live off the land, and village life built around ancient customs and traditions - this is most of India. In a village meeting, known as a choupal, the adults of Sabalpur are given the weekly news and discuss the pre...

Source

BBC Click Online (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

London’s Class Examines BoP Strategies

Ted London, who leads WDI?s Base of the Pyramid (BoP) research initiative, will begin teaching an MBA class on this exciting business phenomenon beginning on Nov. 1. London?s twice-weekly, 90-minute class, BA612 ? Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid, will integrate concepts of strategy, international business and sustainable enterprise to stimulate the leadership skills and competitive imagination needed to design strategies for the base of the pyramid. Throu...

Source

WDI News (link opens in a new window)

Innovative Project Bridges Digital & Housing Divide

A dream of bridging the digital divide is coming true in the countryside outside Mexico City. A municipality called Tecamac in the state of Mexico witnessed birth of Real del Sol, a development of 1,800 small but attractive homes surrounded by palm trees, quiet streets and a connection to the world. Surprisingly it is a pilot project in Mexican low-income housing. Even more surprising, perhaps, is that each hom...

Source

Government Technology (link opens in a new window)

Industry stalwarts discuss the enormous potential of the ’Bottom of the Pyramid’ concept in the Indi

Ensemble 2005, the annual festival of XLRI, would be held at Jamshedpur on November 12 and 13 in a format that would be different from the general B-school Festival format in the sense that it would have events for students, corporates, and B-school aspirants. The games and case studies would be taken as usual from real life incidents and problems faced by sponsors of the event, a release issued by XLRI said. Industry stalwarts would discuss the enormous potential of the ’Bottom o...

Source

Business Standard (link opens in a new window)