MobileActive.org

M-Banking, Mali-Style

In the West African nation of Mali, back street vendors power the mobile phone market. The major players -- Ikatel, a division of France Telecom, along with the homegrown Malitel -- have official stores, but most of their sales come from the street. In West Africa, subscription service is rare. Instead, mobile phone users purchase plastic-wrapped cards of varying denominations, scratch off a silvery bar much like those found on an instant lottery ticket, and recharge their phones with the code hidden underneath. These cards can be purchased from tin-roofed convenience shacks, egg sandwich vendors, or random men walking down the street, stacks of soccer jerseys slung over their shoulders.

Mobile Banking in the Global South - Revolutionary Economic Change?

Mobile banking is taking off, with the potential to change entire economies where the majority of people currently are currently "unbanked," as the term goes. There have been been several very interesting reports and articles recently on the topic.  On the Foreign Policy blog, World bank consultant Christine Bowers writes about the enormous  economic implications that mobile banking has for the world's poorest:

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India: Consultation Paper on Certain Issues relating to Telecom Tariffs

A Note on the Availability (and Importance) of Pre-Paid Mobile Data in Africa

Mobile Telephony Access and Usage in Africa

The Impact Of Mobile Telephony On Developing Country Enterprises: A Palestinian Case Study

SMS Uprising:Mobile Phone Activism in Africa

Riding the Mobile Innovation Wave in Emerging Markets

June Mobile Tech Salon, NYC: Our Mobile Data Exhaust

According to the Wall Street Journal, “[Data produced by the use of mobile phones] generates immense commercial databases that reveal the ways we arrange ourselves into networks of power, money, love and trust.” As mobile phone use increases and applications become increasingly sophisticated, the volume of mobile data we create continues to grow at an incredible rate, creating new possibilities and posing new challenges to notions of privacy.

Businesses want this data for marketing. Congress wants to regulate it. Activists and privacy advocates want to ensure that it is not used to compromise their safety or freedoms. Meanwhile, projects such as UN Global Pulse want to use information gleaned from mobile phone use to detect and prevent slow-onset humanitarian crises. We invite you to join us on the evening of June 30th for our next New York City-based Mobile Tech Salon as we explore these tough questions:

• How do we determine socially beneficial uses for mobile data?
• How can the safety, security, and privacy of individuals be respected while using mobile data to benefit them?
• How can our mobile data be effectively aggregated and anonymized? Or can’t it?

Mobile Applications Laboratories Business Plan

Mobiles for Women. Part 1: The Good.

A village in India last year banned unmarried women from using mobile phones for fear they would arrange forbidden marriages. The village council suspected young men and women were secretly calling one another to arrange to elope. Meanwhile, unmarried men could use mobile phones under parental supervision.

As mobile penetration increases across the developing world, the entry of mobile phones in the hands of women causes reactions. In many cases, mobile phone ownership empowers women in myriad ways: economic gains, increased access to information, greater autonomy and social empowerment, and a greater sense of security and safety.

But, there is a darker side. Targeting women with mobile phones can cause changes in gender dynamics and family expenditures and may relate to increases in domestic violence, invasion of privacy, or control by a male partner.

Who Cares Where I Am, Anyway? An Update on Mobile Phone Location Tracking

Apple’s release of version 4.3.3 of its iOS operating system “..kills iPhone tracking”, according to a recent article. After nearly three weeks of public attention on this issue, this news will perhaps appease some iPhone fans but is not likely to end the debate over what users should know and control about their smartphones’ location tracking abilities. Like Apple, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone systems have also recently come under fire, though important differences exist in the way each company collects and uses location-based information.

We have reviewed recent articles and research on each of these mobile operating systems’ location tracking capabilities and will describe the various claims made and the research undertaken to test these claims.

Grameen Foundation

At Grameen Foundation our goal is simple – we want to see poor people, especially the poorest and those living in harder to reach areas, have access to microfinance and technology and as a result of access to these services, move themselves out of poverty. We envision a world where the poor have broken the generational chain of poverty and lead lives of respect, dignity and opportunity. Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC with an office in Seattle, Washington, was founded in 1997 by friends of Grameen Bank to help microfinance practitioners and spread the Grameen philosophy worldwide. We share the ideas of 2006 Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus. Grameen Foundation and Grameen Bank are independent organizations and have no financial or institutional links.

Mobile Africa Report 2011: Regional Hubs of Excellence and Innovation

The Information and Communication Technology Revolution: Are We Facing a New Development Era For and In Africa?

Futures of Technology in Africa

Information Economy Report 2010: ICTs, Enterprises and Poverty Alleviation

Beyond Markets for Mobiles: The Development Sector and Pro-Poor Impacts of ICTs

Technology and the Rise of the African Entrepreneur

Mobile Phone Communication in the Margins of Africa: Continuity and Change of Communication Patterns and Society

Towards End-to-End Security in Branchless Banking

Women & Mobile - A Global Opportunity: A Study on the Mobile Phone Gender Gap in Low and Middle-income Countries

Decentralizing the Mobile Phone: A Second ICT4D Revolution?

Txteagle in Flight: Mobile Data Collection for Disaster Preparedness

Mobile Phones for Good Governance – Challenges and Way Forward