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The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at the University of California, Irvine, headed by Bill Maurer, Professor of Anthropology, aims to foster a community of inquiry and practice on new forms of money and financial technology among the world’s poorest people: those who live on less than $1 per day. IMTFI awards fellowships to researchers in the developing world to conduct 12-month projects, many with a strongly qualitative component.
The 2010 Annual Report discusses IMTFI’s research in 2008-09 and presents 11 design principles on the creation and implementation of saving services for the poor. |
| Posts in category 'Emerging markets' |
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9 February 2010
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23 January 2010
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Ethnographer Tricia Wang wrote an excellent and long comment on why Google is having troubles in China:
(via danah boyd) |
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18 January 2010
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The World Economic Forum today released its study on Scaling Opportunity: Information and Communications Technology for Social Inclusion, an analysis of how ICT is evolving to address the social and economic needs of the poor. The study notes that, as 4 billion people have access to the global communications infrastructure, the opportunity to create innovative and inclusively tailored solutions for connecting the unconnected is extraordinary.
The report notes that a primary catalyst of change in closing the connectivity gap is the accelerated adoption of mobile phones within emerging economies. Robust market competition, affordable pricing, liberalized regulation and bottom-up innovation have coalesced to create a vibrant multistakeholder ecosystem. Along with highlighting the rapid adoption rate of mobile phone usage within emerging economies, the report focuses on the question: “What’s next?” While the adoption of baseline voice and data services has been shown to have a material economic and social impact in emerging economies, it is essential that the evolution of communication services remains economically sustainable, innovative and socially inclusive. |
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16 January 2010
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12 January 2010
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11 January 2010
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9 January 2010
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Publishing Perspectives reports on a recent panel discussion on the African publishing industry at this year’s African Literature Week (16 – 21 November) in Oslo, Norway.
(via @jranck) |
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8 January 2010
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The latest issue of Interfaces Magazine, a quarterly magazine published by Interaction, the specialist HCI group of the British Computer Society (BCS), contains a lengthy article on an emerging market research project Experientia conducted for Vodafone Global. Many, many thanks to Anxo Cereijo-Roibas of Vodafone, and Erin O’Loughlin and Laura Polazzi of Experientia.
Engaging developing markets Make sure to also check these articles:
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7 January 2010
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7 January 2010
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The Design & Society group within the UK’s Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has published a pamphlet by Scott Burnham, entitled “Finding the truth in systems: in praise of design-hacking”.
In this pamphlet, writer Scott Burnham traces the phenomenon of hacking from one originally associated with audacious breaches of private electronic systems, through to one which increasingly invokes a broader range of stunts and sabotages of convention and asks: is design-hacking merely another post-modern phase in the history of design, or does it reveal a civic ingenuity and resourcefulness that decades of industrially-fed consumerism has masked? |
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7 January 2010
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7 January 2010
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At MIT teams of the Media Lab’s Next Billion Network – our next generation of tech movers and shakers – are exploring new ways to harness the increasingly ubiquitous cellphone to help people in developing nations to raise their incomes, learn to read, get where they’re going, and diagnose their health. Casey Kazan of The Daily Galaxy reports.
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13 December 2009
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| The latest issue of Anthropology Matters contains an interesting article on the use of mobile phones in Africa:
Being cool or being good: researching mobile phones in Mozambique |
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9 December 2009
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19 November 2009
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A number of articles illustrate the power of the mobile phone in emerging markets:
What next after the Mobile revolution in Kenya? Nokia Life Tools – a life-changing service? Mythes et réalités des usages mobiles dans les pays en développement Bangladeshis rush to learn English by mobile |
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13 November 2009
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Nokia’s senior design specialists are touring India to discover how Indians use cellphones. Leslie D’Monte reports for New Delhi’s Business Standard.
(via Dexigner) |
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9 November 2009
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Nokia user researcher Jan Chipchase has posted an in-depth presentation and paper on designing mobile money services for emerging markets:
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4 November 2009
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4 November 2009
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Mobile phones for development and profit: a win-win scenario Rohit Singh Overseas Development Institute, 2009 The number of mobile subscribers globally is estimated to have reached four billion in 2008 (ITU, 2008), with mobile penetration reaching 61%. Around 58% of subscribers are in developing countries, and subscriber growth in Africa – more than 50% per year – is the highest in the world. Studies have shown that this rapid increase in mobile penetration has contributed significantly to economic growth. Fuss, Meschi and Waverman (2005) looked at 92 countries, both developed and developing, to estimate the impact of mobile phones on economic growth for the period 1980 to 2003. They found that a 10% difference in mobile penetration levels over the entire sample period implies a 0.6% difference in growth rates between otherwise identical developing nations. The effect of mobiles was twice as large in developing countries as in developed ones (Waverman, 2005). Mobile phones have brought three kinds of benefits (id21, 2007). First, incremental benefits, improving what people already do – offering them faster and cheaper communication, often substituting for costly and risky journeys. Fishermen in India, for example, can earn more money and waste less fish by phoning coastal markets to see which market has a shortage of supply. Second, transformational benefits that offer something new. Innovative applications, such as m-banking and m-commerce, are bringing banking services to millions for the first time, and enabling people to use mobile phones to pay for goods and services. Third, production benefits that result from the creation of new livelihoods, not only through professional telecommunications jobs but also through activities like re-selling air-time or phone cards. Since the liberalisation of Nigeria’s telecommunications sector in 2000, the industry has become a key source of new jobs in the economy, employing about 5,500 professionals, and responsible, indirectly, for another 450,000 jobs. (via MobileActive) |
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2 November 2009
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MIT News reports on how MIT students are exploring innovative cellphone uses in the developing world.
(via textually.org) |
Experientia news
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