In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: ‘Can the cell phone help end global poverty?’
Key Players: Jan Chipchase
Background: ‘Cell phones vital in developing world’
Related Topics: Wiring money by phone, growth in tech stocks, cell phones and the Internet
Reference: Rapid assessment of cell phones for development
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Cell Phones Driving Business in the Developing World
by
findingDulcinea Staff
The explosion in mobile phone adoption worldwide has led to innovative uses that may revolutionize economic development in poor countries.
30-Second Summary
In Liberia, a refugee wanted to add a land-mine detector to his cell phone so that he could safely return to his home village. In Mumbai, people want a phone that can forecast the weather. Muslims want a phone with a G.P.S. device so that they can direct their prayers to Mecca.
The New York Times profiles Nokia’s globetrotting “human-behavior researcher” Jan Chipchase, whose job is to gather feedback from people in remote corners of the world to improve cell-phone design.
Writer Sara Corbett says that “the possibilities afforded by a proliferation of cell phones are potentially revolutionary.”
Cell phones are now an essential part of people’s lives in the developing world, reported The Washington Post last year.
“Today, mobile phones are the primary form of telecommunication in most emerging economies, fulfilling much the same role as fixed-line phone networks did in facilitating growth in the United States and Europe after World War II.”
More than 1.15 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide in 2007, according to the market research firm Gartner in CNet News. The sum marked a 16 percent increase from the 990.9 million phones sold in 2006. Most of the growth was driven by sales in the developing world.
Western Union Corp. recently announced that it would make available a service that will let customers in the United States wire money to relatives in Latin America using their cell phones, according to The Houston Chronicle.
The New York Times profiles Nokia’s globetrotting “human-behavior researcher” Jan Chipchase, whose job is to gather feedback from people in remote corners of the world to improve cell-phone design.
Writer Sara Corbett says that “the possibilities afforded by a proliferation of cell phones are potentially revolutionary.”
Cell phones are now an essential part of people’s lives in the developing world, reported The Washington Post last year.
“Today, mobile phones are the primary form of telecommunication in most emerging economies, fulfilling much the same role as fixed-line phone networks did in facilitating growth in the United States and Europe after World War II.”
More than 1.15 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide in 2007, according to the market research firm Gartner in CNet News. The sum marked a 16 percent increase from the 990.9 million phones sold in 2006. Most of the growth was driven by sales in the developing world.
Western Union Corp. recently announced that it would make available a service that will let customers in the United States wire money to relatives in Latin America using their cell phones, according to The Houston Chronicle.
Headline Links: ‘Can the cell phone help end global poverty?’
The New York Times profiles Nokia’s globetrotting “human-behavior researcher” Jan Chipchase, whose job is to gather feedback from people in often remote corners of the world to improve cell-phone design. Writer Sara Corbett comments on the explosion of cell-phone use worldwide, especially in developing countries, as well as the expanding role of the device, as it incorporates some of the functions of prior technologies such as the alarm clock, camera, video camera and more. “For people living in a shantytown like Nima—and by extension in similar places across Africa and beyond—the possibilities afforded by a proliferation of cell phones are potentially revolutionary,” Corbett says. “Even the smallest improvements in efficiency, amplified across those additional three billion people, could reshape the global economy in ways that we are just beginning to understand.”
Source: The New York Times
Key Players: Jan Chipchase
The cell-phone design researcher’s blog on the work that he does for Nokia is titled “Future Perfect.”
Source: Future Perfect
Background: ‘Cell phones vital in developing world’
The Washington Post reported in early 2007 that cell phones were becoming an essential part of people’s lives in the developing world, and were fueling growth in developing nations. “Today, mobile phones are the primary form of telecommunication in most emerging economies, fulfilling much the same role as fixed-line phone networks did in facilitating growth in the United States and Europe after World War II.” The Post reported that in the Philippines, more than 4 million people were already using their cell phones as “virtual wallets” to buy things or transfer cash.
Source: The Washington Post
Related Topics: Wiring money by phone, growth in tech stocks, cell phones and the Internet
A new service will allow customers in the United States to send money to relatives in Latin America via cell phone, Western Union Corp. announced earlier this month. The service aims to take advantage of the popularity of mobile phones in the developing world by making it more convenient for people to send and receive money. According to the United Nations, about half of the world’s population—about 3.3 billion people—have access to mobile phones.
Source: The Houston Chronicle
David Kirkpatrick at CNN says that tech stocks have a great future. “The unsated hunger for connectivity, communication, and information just leaps off the charts. Let’s look at, say, Peru, where cell-phone use grew 57% last year, or the real mobile growth champs—Vietnam at 114%, Pakistan at 170%, and Ukraine at a whopping 185%. To be sure, we should acknowledge that some of these stats may be fuzzy, but it’s impossible to deny that we are seeing a historic transformation of the world’s population.”
Source: CNN
More than 1.15 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide in 2007, according to the market research firm Gartner. The sum marked a 16-percent increase from the 990.9 million phones sold in 2006. Most of the growth was driven by sales in the developing world. “Emerging markets, especially China and India, provided much of the growth as many people bought their first phone,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner.
Source: CNet News blog
Cell phones may become the major portal to the Internet in Africa, says Nicole Ferraro of InformationWeek. While broadband services are rare and expensive, mobile telephone infrastructure is widespread. “For the developing world, the Internet experience is going to be a wireless experience,” said Susan Schorr, the head of the International Telecommunication Union’s Regulatory and Market Environment Division.
Source: Information Week
Reference: Rapid assessment of cell phones for development
A document commissioned by Unicef in South Africa summarizes current projects using cell-phone technologies in several developing nations.
Source: Unicef [pdf]
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