New Apps for the Bottom Billion
technologyreview.com
New Apps for the Bottom Billion
1–6 of 6 posts
Re: New Apps for the Bottom Billion
#2I'm pretty sure the bottom billion still don't own cellphones. But this is a smart idea for the bottom billion of cellphone owners.
Re: New Apps for the Bottom Billion
#3I'm pretty sure the bottom billion still don't own cellphones. But this is a smart idea for the bottom billion of cellphone owners.
It was 5 billion in 2010: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-10454065-78.html
Life for the average person in the bottom billion isn't great, but it's getting better.
edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
Re: New Apps for the Bottom Billion
#4I'm pretty sure the bottom billion still don't own cellphones. But this is a smart idea for the bottom billion of cellphone owners.
A cell phone can indeed be the one and only relatively high-tech possession for a poor family in an impoverish region. Used cell phones and/or low-end handsets subsidized by the carrier help them proliferate.
Vaguely tangential, a UCLA professor developed a microscope attachment for a cell phone camera, to permit remote phlebotomy and other telemedicine in areas lacking facilities otherwise. http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/newsroom/featured-news/archive/...
A good overview of this style of tech innovation is the Smithsonian Institute's "Design for the Other 90%." http://archive.cooperhewitt.org/other90/other90.cooperhewitt...
Re: New Apps for the Bottom Billion
#5> this form of payment for a person working just two hours a day every day could equate to about $21 a month—12 percent of the average monthly wage in the region.
Unless the average person in the region works 2 / .12 = 16.67 hours per day every day (do they?) this is a pretty raw deal.
Re: New Apps for the Bottom Billion
#6Not long ago this was a big new feature being advertised for new phones. "Look! Picture messaging! Isn't that amazing" and already it's so old it's been forgotten. The world moves so fast!