Some interesting work being carried out by Every1Mobile (www.every1mobile.net) using mobile social networks to build mass communities of 15-35 year-olds across Africa with a focus on health, education, jobs and entertainment.
Hie Courtney, for discussion's sake I would say first donors need to be of similar mind and pool information resources together say when project proposals are written. However this does not happen I feel the is a donor one donor for them self thinking and protection of "private information"
It's also important to clarify that increased access and participation to a variety of civic, economic, and political systems has some value in and of itself...short of results-oriented impact, which is
Great here is my Email crispim_munda@dai.com
Mobile Financial Services are exciting in the sense that they can be the mainstream channel for financial inclusion of a large fraction of underserved populations around the world.
I think we will see more experimentation with Machine to Machine connectivity in the developing world to increase the flow of information between machines, humans and institutions.
Leveraging data collected through mobile phones or M2M could also lead to design better services and products for customers, while enabling new service such as credit rating based on mobile usage.
In addition to payments, I see a big opportunity in data. Transactions that were previously done with cash and paper by both individuals and small businesses without bank accounts and or any credit record can now be digitized. The data from these transactions can be used to segment and understand customers and develop new innovative products that meet their needs in ways that haven't been done before. This data will also be very valuable for companies targeting BOP markets and that want to understand and optimize their distribution channels.
Michael, the very last point about credit ratings based on mobile usage is an interesting one! The others too, but this sounds pretty new, have you seen models where this is being implemented, particularly among individuals whose income is too low to warrant formal credit ratings?
Good point how do you structure a tariff? A questions we will definitely be facing soon as well. I am sure some of our more experienced colleges here my have answered these questions for their sectors at one point in time.
A major opportunity, which I'll pose as a question: how do you all see mobile bridging the gap between formal and informal economies?
I particularly liked Mike's story of mobile banking allowing consumers or small business owners to develop a trustworthy credit history that can qualify them for loans.
This is another example of leapfrogging, where the systems that grow up in developing economies may not mirror those in today's most developed countries, but in the end they reach a possibly even more efficient solution.
Continuing in that vein, I think mobile banking's enabling of trust and verification will be immensely valuable in areas where cash transactions have been the norm and there has been no way to know who paid whom.
Hi Liam
Not very many which I think needs rectifying.
We have done a number but the most significant we have done is an ongoing research project with NYU in Ghana.
They have been tracking 1200 farmers over nearly 3 years. Half got market price information on Cassava and half didn't. The group that got information to their mobiles phones achieved on average a 10% increase in prices achieved and over household income.
We are continuing this and now also looking as issue of transport costs.
True and this data could be very valuable to financial institutions
M2M -- yes!
For example, in the case of solar home systems, M2M communication (via a phone chip and sim card in the solar system) allows for the system to be enabled and disabled remotely, which facilitates pay-as-you-go. But an unexpected benefit was how useful the information reporting through M2M could be, when the solar system tells the system administrator how much it is being used, how efficient it is, etc. It can go so far as letting someone (or some computer) back at the office SMS the owner to say, "clean the solar panels, they got dusty" after observing the data coming from the solar system.
I think Cignifi and First Access use this kind of big data to unlock further financial services for tradtionally unbanked population. M-Shwari, a microcredit product, from Safaricom also leverages customer M-PESA payment history
To me the informal economy is weighed down by the high costs of the formal economy, looking at mobile money for example people at the BoP have potentially cheaper services to participate in the formal economy
Hi Paolo, I don't entirely agree that rapid increase of agents is the key. In Zambia, we have built the largest mobile money business with just 350 agents that are now turning over $1 million per day. We have found the key is quality over quantity because 1 good agent is better than 10 bad ones. And critically, the agents need to make money, which they don't when MNOs saturate the market as quickly as possible.
Zoona is also doing this for MSMEs in Zambia who can't access any kind of formal working capital finance, as is KopoKopo in Kenya.
We're in the process of structuring a partnership now between a big insurer, an mHealth service provider and a mobile network operator. An instance of big data coming together providing value for everyone.
Doug I totally agree with you, we work in areas were a bank is none existant but some of the transactions go up to 1,000 - 2,000 US dollars, mobile banking is a helpful way out for these small scale farmers.
That brings us to the end of this live session. Thanks so much to our panellists, and to all those who joined the discussion! We’ll leave this discussion open, so please do continue to post your comments!
Be sure to check out the ICT products and blogs in the Design Expo here: http://designexpo.businessfightspoverty.org/
And join the Google Hangout happening right now on last mile distribution! http://community.businessfightspoverty.org/page/design-expo-2014-go…