Most people seem to be unable to live without one.......the now ubiquitous mobile / cell phone.
That mobile / cell phones intrude into our daily lives seems beyond question. But, as this piece "Ubiquitous Across Globe, Cellphones Have Become Tool for Doing Good" in The New York Times shows, the phone can be harnessed to do good. Read on....
"The cellphone has become more of a tool and less of a toy, especially among the poor, and those trying to help them, in emerging markets. It helps deliver, via text message, water, energy, financial services, health care and even education.
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 700 million people do not have access to clean drinking water and over 2.5 billion have no access to toilets. Yet according to the International Telecommunications Union, 96 percent of the world is connected via cellphone — which is why it has become a means of doing good.
Many of the aid services that employ mobile phones are Western-inspired but designed for people making $2 a day. For example, graduate students at Stanford University developed software, M-Maji, to map clean water stations in Kibera, Kenya, a dense urban slum in Nairobi. Think of the Gas Buddy app, but instead of searching for the cheapest and closest gas station, M-Maji helps Kibera residents find clean water within walking distance. A text offers three options: find water, sell water or file a complaint.
Shivani Siroya, an advocate and entrepreneur who splits her time between Los Angeles and Mumbai, is using mobiles to create “credit scores” for the poor. Ms. Siroya took inspiration from the free personal finance management site Mint.com to create a tool for customers in southern India without bank accounts or financial histories.
After logging in daily expenses and earnings via text, users get a monthly “statement,” creating a financial record. The statement becomes the basis for extending credit through microfinance loans and other services.
Ms. Siroya sells her service, InSight, to banks, microfinance institutions and nonprofit groups that want to engage the 400 million so-called unbanked people in India. Since starting the enterprise in 2010, she has collected 614,426 financial records and expanded to South Africa and Kenya. Her “company” is a hybrid model: a mix of private capital and grants, including $100,000 each from the Vodafone Americas Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the telecom giant Vodafone, and the United States Agency for International Development."
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