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Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

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Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#101
post #19

India | Telecom | 110M subscribers on-boarded in 100 days To summarize: Jio, which is our cellular telephony play, now is the world's largest cellular data network (pumping 22,000 TB per day) and onboards a million customers a day! We now have 110 million subscribers (in ~100 days). This became possible when the telco regulators here gave a go ahead to use the Govt of India's pet biometric auth project Aadhaar[1] to…

It should be noted that this was achieved by giving 6 months of 4G data (1GB/day at > 6Mbps) + free telephony, for a mere $6.

Things should normalize once the freebies stop; Jio however will have a massive collection of Indians Biometric identities (and much else skimmed off of "Big Brother" Aadhar) and their browsing habits, which we currently have no idea how they'll exploit. Worse, we have no regulation over Aadhar's data-sharing, nor over the privacy of citizens.

India's state telephony company now injects ads into non-HTTPS sites, and tracks users using the services of a private company. Considering Ambani's complete lack of basic ethics, one can be sure that they'll be much more clever with it than the generic dolts at BSNL.

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#102

In Colombia, we've gone from having no OSS Dev communities, to 5 world class confs in about 7 yrs, and many (local meetups ( http://colombia-dev.org/meetups ) thanks to the work of volunteers and community organizers. We're trying to get a way from the first thing that comes to mind when you think about our country (even though Netflix is making harder for us, lol). More than happy to talk about how it's been done, a…

Hey would love to chat with you about replicating this model in other developing countries. What's the best way to reach out?

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#103
post #37
post #19

India | Telecom | 110M subscribers on-boarded in 100 days To summarize: Jio, which is our cellular telephony play, now is the world's largest cellular data network (pumping 22,000 TB per day) and onboards a million customers a day! We now have 110 million subscribers (in ~100 days). This became possible when the telco regulators here gave a go ahead to use the Govt of India's pet biometric auth project Aadhaar[1] to…

I have not really followed the fintech much but understand the Telecom side of things. You seem like an expert on this space in India and hence my questions: 1. Do you think making everything Aadhar based is a good idea? 2. How much awareness is there about privacy issues related to Aadhar? 3. What risk do you see which would derail the $500B projection for Fintech in India? Also it wasn't clear if that projection wa…

A particular section (to which I belong) is quite afraid with the direction India is taking. Reddit /r/india has many discussions along lines that I'll summarize.

- Aadhar was forced into being without legislation or check/balances.

- The guy heading it is Nilekani, a not so ethical dude, who once ran Infy, and has quite a lot of influence with the right people, both in the US and India.[1]

- Previous admin. was likely planning on making it mandatory "citizen id", but was pushed back by the courts.

- Current admin. has magically turned back on their erstwhile opposition due to "a presentation" and have finally made it mandatory, for everything from passports, SIM cards, and tax refunds.

- Aadhar has no legislative curtailment. There is nothing stopping them from forcing the collection of my DNA, and then selling those to some insurance company in a few years.

- There is also nothing stopping the vogons in the Indian state (and the corporatocracy it serves) from getting hold of all my data... because you know "national security". Accountability is the last thing you'd expect of the Indian state; transparency probably being penultimate.

- This means that anyone who declines to be part of the Animal farm, can neither leave the country nor work there. Jaitley really screwed us over. Naturally this is dressed up as a "us- vs-them" "nationalistic" "black-money hunting" "anti-western/left" move, and this is what comments on Indian newssites reflect. Ironic that the system will be used to clamp down even harder on the people who belong to a English colony run by Brown sahibs, which has made it its goal to destroy every culture, language and religion that are its heritage.

- Next stop is likely the complete destruction of cash (and thus opposition), by tying it all back to Aadhar (which the parent is cheering for). Very very scary future.. will be moving out before the prison cell closes shut.

[1] India's IT Industry does not serve India; now that the outsourcing play is coming to a halt, many are looking to diversify. One way out is to secure massive contracts from the state.

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#104
the Other Valleys newsletter[0] may be of interest. Their description:

"Creative/technology-related news and ideas, that are by and large NOT from the US/UK/EU. Inspiration can strike from many other places (the multiple Other Valleys spread across the world), and I like to know about them. Now you can too."

[0] http://tinyletter.com/othervalleys

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#105
post #99
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palestine isn't developing and it's not a nation either. Do you mean Jordan or Israel? I guess you were referring to Jordan (israel isn't a developing nation[0]). I heard that the west bank and Gaza scene is successful due to very talented people and the support of some Israeli[1] and Saudi arabian companies. It's delighting to hear about group of people who lives in the west bank or Gaza and doing something good for…

It's recognized by most countries in the World. If you love Apartheid, then good for you, but don't bring your off topic political stance here.

There isn't such thing as Apartheid (racial discrimination) in the middle east. Though there are soaring up terrorism trends. Where a minority governs its own people and teaches them to kill the other side.

I want again to bless my brother, who, I assume, is an arab and tell him that in order to fight for a better future and better world we need more people to do good rather than bad.

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#106
allow me to vouch for Bangladesh. there are some good talents and opportunities for grassroots oriented development & innovation!

BKash is a good example. its a mobile payments company with equity interest from Gates Foundation & IFC/WorldBank. https://www.bkash.com/about/company-profile

then there is NewsCred, the leading enterprise content marketing platform. Based in NYC, it is founded by Bangladeshis, & have a dev centre in Dhaka. http://www.newscred.com

GrameenPhone was one of the pioneers in Mobile for Dev + Economic empowerment. Iqbal Quadir, founder of GP also founded The Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. (0) (1) (2)

anyone intetested for more info + discussions re: the field of ICT4D i.e. Tech for Development, I find the TIER group at Berkeley & their mail-list quite useful.(3) (4)

thete are other groups & countries that are also interesting. hope to get back with some more data once I locate them.

(0) https://www.grameenphone.com

(1) http://legatum.mit.edu

(2) http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-iqbal-quadir-...

(3) http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/drupal/about

(4) https://www.millennium.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/tier

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#107
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Palestine isn't developing and it's not a nation either. Do you mean Jordan or Israel? I guess you were referring to Jordan (israel isn't a developing nation[0]). I heard that the west bank and Gaza scene is successful due to very talented people and the support of some Israeli[1] and Saudi arabian companies. It's delighting to hear about group of people who lives in the west bank or Gaza and doing something good for…

> Palestine isn't developing "developing" in this context is a synonym (perhaps more specifically, a euphemism) for "less developed". > and it's not a nation either. Palestine is absolutely a nation (it's also an increasingly widely recognized state , though with disputed borders, but that's independent of it being, or not being, a nation.)

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#108

India Fintech - the whole country was demonetized in November and there is a serious push to making the whole country cashless. This is a serious challenge in a country where e-commerce was predominantly cash-on-delivery. To power this through, it's leveraging the new fangled Aadhaar infrastructure - which is kind of like "social security number with biometric data" and is triggering this huge polarising debate on pr…

> leapfrogged the world.

And why is that ? Because the powers that be decided to push it down the throats of Indians.

Re: Ask HN: Which developing nations have interesting tech stories at the moment?

#110
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's recognized by most countries in the World. If you love Apartheid, then good for you, but don't bring your off topic political stance here.

There isn't such thing as Apartheid (racial discrimination) in the middle east. Though there are soaring up terrorism trends. Where a minority governs its own people and teaches them to kill the other side. I want again to bless my brother, who, I assume, is an arab and tell him that in order to fight for a better future and better world we need more people to do good rather than bad.

Apartheid: When you occupy/hold power for decades in a territory and you don't give the same rights (such as voting) to about 50% of the population.
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