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Digital Dividend Digest vol. 59
May 9, 2005
CONTENTS
1. Introducing www.NextBillion.net
- Development through Enterprise
2. Digital Dividends' Director Dr.
Allen Hammond Discusses ICT and the Role of Enterprise
in Development
3. Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones -
Vodafone Releases Policy Paper
4. Latest News: ICT and
Development through Enterprise
1. Digital Dividends Introduces www.NextBillion.net
- Development through Enterprise
The Digital Dividends team is happy to invite the Digest
community to check out our new sister site: www.NextBillion.net.
Based on demand from Digest subscribers and the at-large community,
we’ve created www.NextBillion.net as a site where development
through enterprise takes front and center.
www.NextBillion.net – Development through Enterprise
is a web portal featuring all the latest on how business,
civil society, and the development community are approaching
poverty through profitable, sustainable solutions. It is more
than a static web site – www.NextBillion.net features
member profiles, blogging tools, private messaging, and a
RSS
feed. Going beyond what you'll find on most web sites,
www.NextBillion.net strives to be a dynamic online community.
As subscribers to the Digest, you are a unique group whose
interest in innovative approaches to development is given.
We therefore invite you to join the www.NextBillion.net
– Development through Enterprise community. Welcome!
2. Digital Dividends’ Director Dr. Allen Hammond Discusses
ICT and the Role of Enterprise in Development
ICT impacts micro-financial services, health care, education,
agriculture and other sectors as well as connectivity. NGOs
have been in the forefront experimenting with ICT for social
purposes, as documented on our Clearinghouse.
Governments have funded - and sometimes implemented - initiatives
as well. But the private sector - small entrepreneurs and
big companies alike - has an increasingly important role to
play. A number of examples were on display at WRI’s
"Eradicating Poverty through Profit" conference
in San Francisco last December.
Whether creating jobs by establishing local entrepreneurs
and helping farmers get better prices like ITC's
e-Choupals in India, or expanding access to microfinance
services through Prodem's
smart ATMs in Bolivia, or creating low cost technology
like AMD's
Personal Internet Communicator, the private sector is
beginning to invest and innovate. This has some important
advantages, since profitability means sustainability, and
the financial strength of the private sector means that successful
activities have the ability to scale. And this is true whether
technology is involved - as it often is - or not.
For that reason, we are launching a new portal, www.NextBillion.net
- Development through Enterprise, to focus on private sector
approaches to poverty alleviation and basic service delivery
in low-income markets in developing countries - to focus on
how the next billion people can productively join the global
economy, improve their welfare, and lift themselves out of
poverty.
We invite you to visit the development
through enterprise portal, see for yourself the outcomes
of San Francisco, and join the discussion.
3 . Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones – Vodafone
Releases Policy Paper
What are the social and economic impacts of mobile
telecommunications? Dissatisfied with the lack of systematic
evidence available to properly answer this question, Vodafone
(in conjunction with an advisory panel of academics, government
officials, and NGO representatives) developed a research program.
The results were released recently, showcasing the work
of world-class political scientists and economists. Highlights
include an econometric analysis of telecoms’ impact
on economic growth in developing countries; analyses of mobiles’
impact on social capital; and much more. Most importantly,
the report emphasizes that mobile technology is not, in and
of itself, a way to alleviate poverty. Rather, Vodafone recognizes
that the technology must prove itself culturally relevant
and economically valuable for it to have any impact.
More on the report can be found
here
4. Latest
News: ICT and Development
through Enterprise
Small
box 'to the end digital divide'
This story discusses African non-profit developers
Ndiyo and their quest to build a sub-£100 PC using thin-client
technology. Ndiyo says the small, cheap boxes are targeted
at smaller companies, cybercafes, or schools, which need an
affordable, reliable system for providing clusters of two
to 20 workstations.
Internet
Helps Africa via Remittances and VoIP
MamaMikes is a small e-commerce and remittance site
in Kenya. Acting as a proxy for remittances, users can buy
monthly shopping certificates for Kenyan and Ugandan grocery
stores, mobile phone airtime, or a petrol card for friends
and relatives back home.
Pilot
Project Using Mobile Phones for Healthcare in Africa
Bridges.org has conducted an in-depth investigation
of a pilot project by the Cape Town Health Directorate that
tested innovative uses of mobile phone technology to improve
the treatment of Tuberculosis (TB) in its clinics. The treatment
of TB in Cape Town offers a good setting to explore whether
and how mobile phones can be used in healthcare.
RSS
(Really Simple Syndication) will let you get www.NextBillion.net
headlines in a news aggregator either on your desktop or via
a web service. Read more below about what RSS is, what it
can do, and how you can use it.
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