Feb 13, 2012
Are Cellphones Ending Poverty?
Check out this interesting article in the NY Times Magazine about how the market for cell phones is growing in the developing world and how cell phones companies like Nokia are researching ways to make communication available in even the most remote locations.
According to statistics from the market database Wireless Intelligence, it took about 20 years for the first billion mobile phones to sell worldwide. The second billion sold in four years, and the third billion sold in two. Eighty percent of the world’s population now lives within range of a cellular network, which is double the level in 2000.
The article poses the question, ‘can the cellphone help end global poverty?’ Although technology alone may not solve this problem, increased access to communication in developing countries presents real opportunities for the future.
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Agreed Greg. Here's a great
Agreed Greg. Here's a great example of how cell phone technology is being used for development: Tapan Parikh, computer science professor at UC-Berkeley, developed a toolkit for use on cell phones that enables self-help groups (e.g. farming cooperatives) to manage their internal operations more efficiently and transparently. For his work, he won the MIT-based Technology Review's 2007 Innovator of the Year and Humanitarian of the Year awards. You can read more about it here: http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~parikh/ and http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=081607093823
End poverty? Probably not.
End poverty? Probably not. But I think it would be fair to say that not only can they reduce poverty, they've already had beneficial effects. Maybe even on the top ten list of tech innovations that reduce poverty, though probably below the agricultural Green revolution.