There is a very interesting experiment going on for the past few years in New Delhi, India called Hole in the Wall. Free-to-use [Windows-powered] computer kiosks with Internet connections are placed in and around a number of slums. The PC’s are designed to be industrial-strength with plexi-glass on the front and plastic covered keyboard and… Continue reading Leveraging Children’s Curiosity
The Economist published a report on how mobile phones are starting to become banking tools for the poor. In South Africa, 16 million people, over half of the adult population, have no bank account. Yet 30% of those people have mobile phones almost all of which are used on a pay-as-you-go basis. You might think… Continue reading Mobile bank accounts
Greg Wyler, buy cialis an American tech entrepreneur, is investing his own money in bringing Internet services as a business to Rwanda. His company, Terracom Communications is for the first time offering cellphone coverage, Internet access and television to unserved parts of the country. Terracom is hooking up schools to the Internet and opening Internet… Continue reading Wiring Rwanda
The project to create an affordable laptop for every child in developing countries which I wrote about earlier, story has recently spun out into its own non-profit called One Laptop per Child. They have made a lot of progress in moving forward this project for concept to reality and will soon be rolling out the… Continue reading One laptop per child
I am always interested in practical ways that most people can contribute to defeating global poverty. It seems like so often the ideas coming our way are so indirect … through one or more intermediary whom you give money to and then it passes down the chain and trust that it actually benefits the needy… Continue reading Share your computer to defeat malaria
This article was pointed out to me by my friend Harry Veihmeyer… The number of people with mobile phone subscriptions in Africa is projected to explode to 378M by 2011 increasing penetration levels to nearly 50% by then. From there its one small step to internet connectivity for the mass of Africans. Mindbranch’s African Mobile… Continue reading Africa mobile handset market explodes
Sevak Solutions is a non-profit which is researching practical means of using the latest technologies to improve the feasibility of delivering sustainable financial services to the rural poor … especially needed in places with lower population densities. Microfinance has mostly flourished in higher-density rural and urban environments and has struggled to develop in lower population… Continue reading Applying technology to defeat poverty
