| Posts in category 'Africa' |
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1 July 2009
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1 July 2009
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Katrin Verclas of Mobile Active points out that the new Google/ MTN/ Grameen collaboration on mobile information services in Uganda is very expensive, and this is creating some problems:
But Erik Hersman, who reflects on the same issue on his blog White African, doesn’t agree:
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24 June 2009
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Malaysian newspaper The Star devotes plenty of space to user-centred design in three stories that feature the work of Genevieve Bell, Intel’s user experience director.
“Marrying” anthropology and science
Annoying things device-users do
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15 June 2009
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12 June 2009
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Web 2.0 solutions offer people in rural areas a platform for networking and knowledge exchange.
This brochure, published by GTZ, provides a systematic overview of Web 2.0 experiences made to date in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It serves as a practice-oriented introduction to the theme and discusses both the potentials and the possible limits to the participatory web. - Read press release |
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11 June 2009
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11 June 2009
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11 June 2009
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Barclays 360 magazine, a quarterly thought leadership magazine for senior management within the Barclays Group, is devoted to simplicity in product and service design.
Here are the feature articles (of which the last one, which is excellently written and directly dealing with the current state of user experience, is my top recommendation): Education: Business is increasingly plugging the skills gaps of the world’s workforce Small sums, big benefits: microfinance brings banking to untapped markets Simplicity: new designs focus on making complex products easy to use |
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11 June 2009
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The people of Microfinance Podcast have just posted a short video interview with Nick Hughes, Head of International Mobile Payment Solutions at the Vodafone Group, who has been instrumental in getting M-PESA up and running.
(via CGAP) |
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11 June 2009
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This week the Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion hosted a conference about the “Bottom of the Pyramid” and Elizabeth Losh, author of Virtualpolitik and writing director of the Humanities Core Course at the University of California, Irvine, has an excellent and long summary on her blog.
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1 June 2009
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After Patrick Meier, a doctoral research fellow at Harvard University, a PhD candidate at The Fletcher School, and an active contributor at Ushahidi, participated in a high-level mobile banking (mBanking) conference in Nairobi, he reflected on the issue of trust in mobile banking in emerging markets, and presents a crowdsourced solution in a piece on iRevolution.
(See also this Reuters story) |
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1 June 2009
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| The Financial Times has published a special report on connectivity, analysing the implications of a connected planet.
My preferred pieces: Skills: Business must learn from the new tribe Mobility: Flexibility is driven from the bottom up Overcoming the fear of connectivity Developing world: ‘Have-nots’ no closer to catching the ‘haves Case study: Text messages give shopkeepers the power to bulk buy Opinion: IT makes poverty a ‘curable affliction’ Donor programmes: Sponsors can now view benefits online Developed world: Those with no access miss out on opportunities Connecting the world: Ubiquity will be a hard state to reach |
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31 May 2009
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The Nokia Siemens Networks has created an extremely well produced website and video series, entitled “Round. The World. Connected.” that sets out to understand what connectivity means to different people and cultures across Europe, Asia and the Americas. The project focuses specifically on how the latest communications technologies are touching peoples lives and on the socio-economic impact of connectivity.
Currently the site has five 10 minute video episodes up on Europe, Africa, Latin America, USA and India (with China and Jakarta/Tokyo following soon). Each episode comes with clearly marked additional footage, plus interviews of Nokia Siemens Networks customers in those areas. Mira Slavova of the excellent mmd4d blog that deals with mobile services for emerging markets, reports extensively on the African episode and its additional footage. |
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30 May 2009
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Ken Banks, creator of FrontlineSMS, writes in PC World on the future of mobile phones and believes that many future mobile innovations will be borne out of the realities of the developing world.
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30 May 2009
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In Asia, Africa, Europe and elsewhere, cell phone technology has always been way ahead of what’s available in the states. Around the world, people use their phones in innovative, creative ways.
For example, mobile phones help rural farmers gather information about crop prices, and bargain shoppers download coupons on the fly. For this NPR Talk of the World program, guests and listeners from around the world discuss innovative ways they use their cellular phone. Guests are: |
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28 May 2009
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Leading up to the 2009 Mobile Money Summit CGAP, an independent policy and research centre dedicated to advancing financial access for the world’s poor, is running a podcast series with some of the key people involved in the CGAP/DFID Branchless Banking in 2020 scenarios work.
The process is based on one driving question: How can government and private sector most affect the uptake and usage of branchless banking among the unserved majority by 2020? Jonathan Donner is a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India. Previously, Jonathan was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and worked for the consultancies Monitor Company and The OTF Group. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Communication Theory and Research. Speaking on the side of a workshop that was held in Cape Town last month, Jonathan shared his views on how cash and electronic money aren’t so different when it comes to a question of trust, and how branchless banking is helping poor people spend less time and money to do simple financial transactions. Listen to interview (mp3) |
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28 May 2009
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25 May 2009
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Erik Hersman reports on his blog White African from the e Fletcher mBanking conference in Nairobi.
Talking Mobile Banking in Kenya Volume vs Value in Mobile Payment Systems |
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19 May 2009
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| The blog series on New Media Practices in International Contexts, which I announced in January, is now complete. It covers the unique characteristics of digital media user behaviours in very different socio-cultural contexts of China, Korea, India, Brazil, Japan and Ghana, with a particular interest in the intersection of youth, new media and learning.
The authors, a group of people around Mimi Ito, believe that examining new media practices from an international (and, in some cases, transnational) perspective will enhance their current efforts to theorise youth, new media and learning, a wider MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative. China (by Cara Wallis): introduction – mobile phones – gaming – internet – new media production – conclusion Each case study focuses upon the telecommunications landscape, internet and mobile phone practices, gaming, and new media production, and provides a unique perspective on the ways in which infrastructure, institutions and culture (among other factors) shape contemporary new media practices. |
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25 April 2009
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Today was the Africa Gathering in London and ICT4D, an Austrian NGO dealing with ICT for development, has done an excellent job at summarising them:
Summaries 1 Summaries 2 Summaries 3 Summaries 4 Panel Discussion Check also this excellent video trailer of the ICT4D movie project, which deals with mobile phone use in Zanzibar. |
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