While everyone is amazed at the quick proliferation of mobile phones in the developing world, here's a startling statistic which should check our unbridled enthusiasm for m-everything: 73% of women in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia do not have a mobile phone.

Across all developing countries, adult women are 21% less likely to have a phone than men. In absolute terms, that's a 300 million-woman gender gap. Yet that gap is not evenly distributed. For instance, rural women who work outside the home are more likely to pay for phone use themselves and spend more on mobile phones as a percentage of income than their urban counterparts.

Why do women own and pay for mobile phones? Because they see tangible benefits: across all women, 90% feel safer and more connected thanks to their mobile phones and almost 50% used a mobile phone to search for employment or increase their income.

And mobile line operators should take note. The annual incremental revenue opportunity in closing the gender gap would be $13 billion per year, and even at current rates, 66% of all new mobile subscribers will be women. Simply put, women are the face of growth for the mobile industry in the developing world.

Such are the findings of the Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity (PDF), authored by Vital Wave Consulting and sponsored by the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women.

But Brooke Partridge, CEO of Vital Wave, took this concept a step further. She gave us a new development formula to challenge our conventional thinking:

Women + Mobile Phones = Economic Development

We all know that equipping women in low-income countries with productivity tools earns tremendous returns for development - it's not just good for them, it's good for their families, villages, societies, countries.

We know that women spend up to 90% of their income on their families and are responsible for up to 80% of food production in many low and middle-income countries. These women run families and businesses.

And we also know that mobile phones are uniquely positioned as tools for growth in our era. Research has shown that mobile phones are associated with faster economic and business growth.

Combining the two - the role of women and the power of a mobile phone - has the potential for exponential impact. It's the perfect, and the obvious combination; empowering women through the benefits of mobile phone ownership is the easiest and most straightforward measure we can adopt to advance social and economic growth in developing countries.

Speaker notes of Brooke Partridge, Vital Wave Consulting

The Role of mServices

After dropping that bombshell on the Technology Salon, Brooke went on to explain that closing the mobile phone gender gap will not be easy. Of course cost and access are issues, but she found that perceived need is the largest barrier to female adoption.

Women, it turns out, just see a phone as a communication device for talking with those that they already know. And if everyone they know is near to them - in their family or community, they don't feel the need for a device to reach them. Either they can easily walk to them or can borrow someone else's phone to call them when needed.

So how to drive adoption, close the gender gap, and increase economic development? mServices. In the Salon, we brainstormed on what those mServices could be, and came up with these four:

1. mPayments: With M-Pesa reaching throughput equal to an astounding 11% of Kenya's GDP in 2009, its the killer mServices application. In her research, Brooke found Kenyan women to be more aware of the value that mServices could provide them, because of their exposure to M-Pesa.
2. mEmployment: Remembering that 50% of women looked for jobs or increased income through mobile phone usage, we quickly agreed that mobile job boards or an mCraigslist would be popular if targeted at women.
3. mHealth: Women are usually the home health provider, so offering them healthcare services (advice to diagnosis to treatment) over mobile phones should be an obvious mService
4. mAgriculture: Women are responsible for up to 80% of locally-consumed food production, so they should be the target farmers in mobile agriculture services.

mServices have barriers to deployment. The services need to be very low cost, and yet high volume to be sustainable over millions of often rural and poor users. And to scale them beyond interesting pilots, there needs to be ongoing early-stage support - both capacity building and financial - that's often missing in the gap between public donor program and private venture capital.

And of course, as we've found in previous Salons, sustainaiblity and scale are relative and contentious. Scale can be a community, a province, a country, or a continent depending on who is measuring sustainability. In the world of mobile phone operators, its almost always in the millions - either subscribers or revenue.

Women + Mobile Phones + mServices = Economic Development

Brooke concluded the Salon by remind us that while the mobile phone gender gap may look like $13 Billion dollar for-profit problem, mServices deserve attention from women's groups and development organizations.

Scaling mServices is the key to closing the mobile phone gender gap, mobile phone ownership will empower women across the developing world with new access to information, services, and goods, and therefore mobile phones usage by women is directly linked with, and will result in, overall economic development.

Competitive private companies know that just adopting the tools of ICT will not magically lead to productivity gains - it takes much change and investments in business processes to really reap the rewards that ICT can bring. But this basic tenant can be lost in the hype around specific devices or technologies.

So how can donor-funded projects that aim to increase enterprise competitiveness using ICT, make sure companies can take advantage of technological advances to create a sustainable advantage? Or even a strategic advantage.

In the November Technology Salon, we'll get an exclusive sneak peak at "How Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can Catalyze Enterprise Competitiveness", a brief from the Business Growth Initiative (BGI), that's not yet released.

In our forum, we'll be able to review and give our opinion on the brief's ability to inform those who design and implement donor-led ICT projects through its four sections:

1. A framework for supporting ICT as a tool to improve enterprise competitiveness for donor projects
2. Examples of framework operation in agriculture/agribusiness, tourism, and manufacturing sectors.
3. Lessons from donor-initiated ICT projects with greater impacts, more sustainability, and larger scale
4. Recommendations to donors on creating better ICT-enabled business and competitive environments.

Please join us Thursday, November 19, for what will be a lively discussion around enterprise competitiveness and donor funding at the intersection of technology and development. We'll be led by Michael Ducker, an ICT development specialist focused on supporting ICT, entrepreneurs and innovation.

Can Donors Improve Enterprise Competitiveness with ICT?
November Technology Salon
Thursday, November 19, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

Do note that we'll have hot coffee and Krispe Kreme donuts for a morning rush, but seating is limited and the UN Foundation is in a secure building. So the first fifteen (15) to RSVP will be confirmed attendance and then there will be a waitlist.

Whew, I think this was one of the most intense and contentious Technology Salons yet! After an hour of lively discussion around what "sustainability" and "scale" means to information and communication technology programs, we were just starting to pull back the layers around the topics.

(Want to attend the next Technology Salon? Then subscribe to our meeting announcements to be invited.)

Sustainability Means Many Things

We quickly found that there were many definitions of sustainability and scale. Maybe too many, as these terms differed wildly across implementers and donors. It was even suggested that in the realm of ICT, development has an unbroken string of failures since none of the projects have scaled to the extent of mobile phones.

Before we cast out the entire body of work to date, much of ICT4D is done as experimentation - there is an expectation of failure while we figure out models that would work. At least we have mobile phones to show that there are ICT models that can scale, sustainably.

Donor Funding is a Sustainable Model

Mobile phones also show that beneficiaries must pay for at least a portion of ICT services. This both validates the service and makes it responsive to the beneficiaries. But they do not need to pay for all of it. In many cases, long-term external funding from donors, government, foundations, etc, can be the cornerstone of a sustainable program.

Great examples of this are in the education and health field. Universal primary education is a public good in many countries - paid in full by government entities which themselves can be funded indirectly by beneficiaries (taxes) or external funders (multi-lateral donors).

In the health field, health information is often created and supplied via free-to-beneficiary models supported by donors. And before anyone thinks donor funding isn't sustainable, there are multiple countries that are in their third or fourth decade of multi-billion dollar multi-lateral donor agreements.

Different Time Horizons for Sustainability

Which brings us to time horizons. In development, we are often looking at projects with a three-year funding commitment, while in domestic private industry, three years is considered the initial start-up phase, with five years the usual time horizon for profitability. In the developing world, even successful organizations like Kick Start, consider 10 years a more reasonable break even benchmark.

So there is a gap between this pilot/start up phase, and a self-sustaining business model, that isn't bridged by current financing. Donors are reluctant to fund "on-going operating costs", yet venture capitol sees development investments as too risky, and development financing organizations rarely see above microfinance or below multi-million dollar financing.

Add to that gap, the reality that donor project requests don't give much guidance around what they consider sustainability to be in their given time horizon, nor do many donor staff have the training to evaluate what models would be sustainable anyway, and implementers are often left to create fantasy sustainability plans and financing.

Sustainability Changes Over Time

In sustainability plans, there is also often the expectation that sustainable business models do not change, or if they do, they should always go from a donor or publicly supported program to one privately funded. In education, its often the opposite.

Educational innovations, like computers in classrooms, start with private schools which are funded through parental school fees. Then, once the benefit of that innovation is considered a basic necessity for a quality education, the government is expected to scale it up to all public schools.

It was suggested that while education and healthcare could be public goods, industries like finance or telecoms didn't need public support. Then we were reminded of the recent troubles in the financial sector, and its billions in bailout funds handled by Central Banks around the world. In addition, Universal Service Funds helped spur innovation in rural telecoms that have come back to benefit all users.

How Do We Scale, Sustainably?

While we didn't answer this question today, we did agree that the market works in the developing world. Mobile phones prove that if there is beer money, there is money for information and communication technologies. People will find a way to pay for what they consider necessities. Our challenge is to keep innovating, and nurturing that innovation, until we find another model that scales - lest ICT become a one-hit mobile wonder.

At least we can celebrate one small step towards scale - the Technology Salon is now replicated with Mobile Active's the NYC Mobile Tech Salon. And like any good model, we've adapted to the local conditions - they're meeting in the evenings, over beer, instead of the morning over donuts. Next, a San Franciscan conversation.

What do you think is the single most important issue at the intersection of technology and development? Recently, the twin issues of sustainability and scale have come to the forefront in many conversations, with both peaking in October in several forums:

• Sustainability: Besides being the buzz word de jour, this month's Educational Technology Debate is focusing on ICT4E sustainability and at an IADB meeting, one discussant suggested that virtually everything that USAID does was unsustainable.
• Scale: Both Joel Selanikio of Data Dyne and incoming mHealth Alliance Executive Director David Aylward recently reminded us that while there is an incredibly vibrant mobile phone industry, after 15 years of PDA and mobile phone pilots there are few, if any, scaled mobile technology development projects - most are small, non-sustainable proofs of concept.

But what do we mean by "sustainability" and "scale" in ICT4D?

Now here's the real issue. What might be our shared definition of both "sustainability" and "scale" with information and communication technology programs in international development?

Is sustainability when projects are self-funding, like a for-profit business, and is scale reaching an entire country? Or can sustainability be reached by a dedicated funder, like government, and can scale be just a community large enough to support sustainability?

Also, is sustainability and scale different for different sectors in the developing world? Could donor support be a valid business model in education or health - two sectors dominated by government support in developed countries - while finance and agriculture are required to source private sector income streams?

Please join us Thursday, October 22, for what will be a lively discussion around sustainability and scale at the intersection of technology and development, lead by Kerry McNamara, a Scholar-in-Residence at American University and a noted expert on technology and development.

"Sustainability" and "Scale": What's that really mean for ICT4D?
October Technology Salon
Thursday, October 22, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

Do note that we'll have hot coffee and Krispe Kreme donuts for a morning rush, but seating is limited and the UN Foundation is in a secure building. So the first fifteen (15) to RSVP will be confirmed attendance and then there will be a waitlist.

Last week I had the privilege to participate in the Humanitarian Technology Challenge - a call to action for the IEEE membership to get engaged with the multiple issues facing development that could be overcome with technology. The HTC is a partnership between IEEE and the United Nations Foundation Technology Partnership with the Vodafone Foundation. (more on the HTC partnership)

Over two days, IEEE members were encouraged to develop and implement technological responses to three humanitarian challenges in developing countries:

1. Reliable Electricity: Availability of power for electronic devices
2. Data Connectivity of Rural District Health Offices: Capability of exchanging data among remote field offices and central health facilities
3. Patient ID Tied to Health Records: Maintain consistent patient records, including when patients visit different clinics and when they relocate

Working with them were representatives of 10 humanitarian organizations, and the brainstorming sessions where technology and development experts came together to devise solutions made the conference feel like a large-scale Technology Salon.

We did not achieve any immediate solutions, but we did practice a number of key skills in deploying development solutions. My favorite was using elevator pitches to increase excitement and buy-in by local leaders around solutions to the three challenges. We started with the challenge to sell a power system to generate electricity for a school, for a day, where I came up with the following pitch:

You want power. You want cheap power. You want cheap power through people power! And people power from those with the most energy: kids. Better yet, naughty kids. Put the youth on bicycles that recharge batteries. And while this idea is not new, my plan has a bonus: electroshock therapy. That's right, electrodes to shock the kids if they don't pedal fast enough. Which gives you a reward that every parent will find even more impressive that electrical power, exhausted, calmed children.

While my pitch was greeted with laughter, it was also meant as a lesson. Think outside the box for your solution, use cheap, available materials that are easy to maintain and expand on locally, and be flexible to respond to unforeseen needs.

From here, the IEEE membership will do deep dives into these three areas and we should see interesting outcomes in a few months around possible technology solutions to these vexing development challenges.

At the Future of Mobile-Empowered Development Technology Salon, an audience of development practitioners and technologists had the unique opportunity to host Terry Kramer, Board Member of the Vodafone Americas Foundation, as well as Vodafone's Group Strategy and Business Improvement Director, and hear about Vodafone's vision, strategy, and engagement in emerging markets and the base of the pyramid (BoP).

(Want to attend the next Technology Salon? Then subscribe to our meeting announcements.)

We focused on the desire by mobile network operators (MNO) to increase revenues and market share by expanding into rural areas, where it becomes more difficult and costly to provide service. We also recognized that the development community wants to capitalize on the success and reach of the mobile network to assist the poor, but these two actors are still wrestling with how to make that happen.

So how would the development community partner with an MNO like Vodafone? The Salon identified two issues that are key to developing partnership opportunities:

1. MNOs have specific business objectives and drivers. The development community needs to understand these requirements to design projects that will engage MNOs.
2. MNOs want to partner with the development community. They are looking for key applications that solve a common need for many in developing countries. MNOs want to satisfy those needs for better business results.

In essence, both parties need to understand each other's business better. Let's begin with briefly outlining Vodafone's strategy and then what they are looking for and how development initiatives can partner with them. We'll conclude with a mDevelopment challenge from Terry.

Vodafone's Emerging Market Activity

Vodafone has been successful in the higher end of the developing world market - urban areas, more affluent populations - and are now reaching into the mass market at the base of the pyramid because this is where an MNO can achieve scale. India will be a major market for Vodafone - they're forecasting it will account for one-quarter of all their revenue growth in the next four years.

The challenges Vodafone and others face in serving the BoP are that return on investment is low. On average the monthly revenue per user in emerging markets is only $4-5, so it is not usually economical for an MNO to go into remote areas. In most markets today there are four competitors and in general there are low-priced players, igniting price wars.

Business Drivers for Mobile Applications

Vodafone applies the "80/20" rule - they want to find the key applications most commonly needed by many ("80%"), the programs with the greatest impact. Vodafone is interested in mobile applications that:

• Generate a high volume of transactions and therefore more revenue
• Protect market share or retain subscribers
• Increases market penetration and adds new customers
• Has mass market appeal, works on a large scale

Key Applications Needed by Many

Vodafone is particularly interested in developing projects from corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities that can then be scaled to commercial activities. M-PESA was originally a joint project with DfID that is now a commercial success and Vodafone believes some m-health applications will eventually become mass market commercial products. They are now looking to the development community for the next key application.

In the Salon, thought centered around agriculture apps that scale and satisfy business drivers, as there was consensus in need but not services - NGOs are saying "wouldn't it be nice if" but don't see solutions that can help with:

• Agriculture market price information systems that scale and are sustainable
• Supply chain finance between farmers, suppliers, buyers, and banks, possibly leveraging M-PESA type systems
• Farmer education on crop rotation, fertilizers, or weather information
• Farmer market linkages between associations & co-ops and commercial actors
• Food traceability for food security & export quality requirements

Yet agriculture is a hard nut to crack because at first glance, one does not see a high volume of transactions being generated out of this system, nor an inherent path to achieving scale and sustainability, which creates difficulties in getting the interest of the MNOs.

On a larger scale, there are many silo systems (m-banking, health, agriculture, etc) that could be an opportunity for the development of common platforms which could scale across industries and countries. The Ministry of Health in Senegal is asking their software development industry to create a single m-services platform.

Ways to Engage with Vodafone Foundations

Vodafone has the Vodafone Group Foundation headquartered in the UK that focuses on global programs, and foundations in 23 markets, each with their own programs. The Vodafone Americas Foundation can also fund US organizations that do international work.

Social investing is the Foundations biggest focus. The Wireless Innovation Project is a great example. Its a new initiative that identifies and funds unique innovations grounded in local needs and yet can scale to solve critical social issues around the world.

Generally Vodafone keeps foundation and commercial work separate, but there is commercial value in CSR projects. Vodafone is able to do more when they can present themselves to a new market as a firm that helps build the economy. It allows them easier access to licenses and facilitates a more effective rollout.

A Concluding Call for Engagement

Mobile network operators (MNO) want increase revenues and market share by expanding into rural areas, and see partnerships with the development community as a key market entry strategy. Specifically, Vodafone is looking to the development community for key applications that solve a common need for many and can be scaled into commercial activities.

Terry Kramer emphasized that he wants to hear of new ideas and new approaches directly from us, and spur a vibrant dialogue on possible solutions and their ability to scale and meet Vodafone objectives. Vodafone is willing to put great effort into application with great social benefit, as doing well while doing good has direct benefit for Vodafone.

Let the comment section below be that feedback forum - submit your ideas today!

Mobile phone operators in the developing world have unleashed a torrent of communication and innovation, spurring new business opportunities and economic development for everyone from village phone ladies to multinationals. And they've done it through private investment and with strong profits, mostly independent of traditional international development models.

So what can the development communities learn from the mobile operator approach? Where are they going in their "emerging markets" - the future of mobile coverage, usage tariffs, distribution channels, and network sharing? And what's the next paradigm shift in technology that can spur more development - be it public or private?

Please join Terry Kramer, Group Strategy & Business Improvement Director for Vodafone in an intimate, informal, and in person, discussion around the nexus of mobile technology and international development at the next Technology Salon.

Our gracious host is the UN Foundation and we'll have coffee and donuts for a good morning sugar rush to wake everyone up. Two changes with this Salon - we'll meet on Friday morning, instead of Thursday, and Alice Liu will be the guest moderator, as I will be in San Francisco.

The Future of Mobile-Empowered Development
April Technology Salon
Friday, April 24, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

Do note that seating is limited and the UN Foundation is in a secure building. So the first fifteen (15) to RSVP will be confirmed attendance and then there will be a waitlist.

About Terry Kramer:
Terry Kramer is the Group Strategy & Business Improvement Director for Vodafone, the world's leading mobile telecommunications company with 289 million customers. Terry Kramer joined Vodafone in January 2005 as Chief of Staff, and was appointed Group HR Director in 2006, before being appointed Group Strategy & Business Improvement Director in September 2008.

About Alice Liu:
Alice Liu is founder and principal of Emerging ICT Group, with a current focus on microfinance and global health. She just completed a study on linking mobile banking and mobile payment systems with credit bureaus. Past projects include analyzing a client's programs to link small and medium enterprises with mobile network operators.

Imagine a dozen thought leaders from the technology and development fields in the UN Foundation conference room, all expressing ideas and options on how to expand ICT's - in this case mobile phone coverage - in the developing world. That's the Technology Salon experience, and April's Technology Salon, Designing a Micro Mobile Telco was a particularly intense debate.

Lead by Dave Ferguson, we began with the broad consensus that expanding connectivity to rural poor would provide opportunity for economic development, and that while mobile phone coverage is expanding at a rapid pace. But its not homogeneously distributed, nor would it ever be if left to the current GSM providers.

There needs to be a micro mobile telco solution, an entrepreneur-led, small-scale business model to deliver connectivity to rural or underserved areas not seen as commercially viable by large GSM providers.

In this model, voice communication is the original "killer app" - the key functionality that drives early and widespread adoption and revenue. But should broadband data also be provided, even if there isn't obvious demand? Broadband data connectivity is needed for many applications in virtually every development sector, from e-government to e-health, and is often central to any educational intervention. And as mobile carrier backhauls are almost always IP networks, the technology it there.

In fact, there was also consensus that technology was not the main micro mobile telco constraint - costs and functionality continue to develop to the advantage of potential effective solutions like WiFi mesh networks, WiMax technology, and GSM infrastructure. Each technology has its drawbacks - voice scale for WiFi, spectrum owners for GSM, and antenna power, tower security, and backhaul for all - but they could be overcome.

There have been specific development connectivity projects that have been reported to generated profitable, sustainable businesses from remote connectivity solutions. However, none have found a profitable micro-telco business model that can scale. Ultimately we need a business model solution that could have 100s of instances in a single country - scale in frequency (not in size) is critical. The franchise business model works well with scale in frequency, and sale to GSM providers as they expand would be a viable exit strategy.

With micro mobile teclos, the relationship with incumbent telcos is a critical success factor to leverage existing assets (spectrum, backhaul, and back office functionality) of GSM providers. Even if franchisees used unlicensed spectrum plus open source software and hardware, there needs to be a good relationship with GSM providers to keep them from undermining the franchise's operations via homologation constraints.

Governments, regulators and/or incumbent telcos are also key to scale and there are interesting ideas on how they can "jump start" these models. Functioning Universal Service Funds can be a source of financing for rural expansion.

Local governments can be anchor micro mobile telco clients - both as consumers of the connectivity services but also consumers of the data that connectivity services can provide. From basic census data to health, tax, and education services, micro mobile telcos can offer value to entrenched interests, easing the telco's growth. The consumer goods and agricultural input industries are other potential dual-role client - as a consumer of connectivity and the data the service can aggregate.

International development also has a role in educating governments on micro mobile telco benefits in expanding government services to rural areas. Development agencies can be honest brokers around technology and business models, with a focus on sustainability. An historical parallel is rural electrification development activities.

Yet, electrification efforts are still facing the same problem years later - scalable local solutions that can be replicated internationally - so exploration across the spectrum of micro mobile telco options continues, and your input is welcome - online or in person at the next Technology Salon.

Mobile phones are an amazing success story in the developing world, bringing transformative opportunities to many underserved communities. But they do not reach out to remote rural villages - where there is demand and purchasing power, albeit limited - and a scaleable micro mobile teclo solution could transform communications and development for the poorest of the poor.

So what might be the business and technology models that would allow entrepreneurs to roll out mobile phone systems to these underserved communities? And could development organizations play a role?

Which technology would be best: GSM? WiFi? WiMax? What's the business case: Handset sales? Subscriptions? Airtime only? Could voice services be augmented with data? Even broadband?

How might an entrepreneur serve 400 customers with $10 per month revenue or $48,000 per annum? And should aid organizations seed these businesses?

Please join David Ferguson on Thursday, April 2, for a lively discussion of possible micro mobile telco models and expect to hit the whiteboards with your ideas. Our gracious host is the UN Foundation and I'll have coffee and donuts for a good morning sugar rush to wake everyone up.

Designing a Micro-Mobile Telco
April Technology Salon
Thursday, April 2, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

Do note that seating is limited and the UN Foundation is in a secure building. So the first fifteen (15) to RSVP will be confirmed attendance and then there will be a waitlist.

For the July Technology Salon, we're returning to the cellular technology world, with a twist. We'll be discussing mobile banking, m-Banking, but we'll move beyond the handsets and the hype to discuss the legal frameworks required to make it a reality.

In some countries, text messages cannot be used as evidence in court - a problem if that's all you have to show for a money transfer. In other regions, cross-border and multi-currency transactions is the domain of banks, not mobile operators. In either situation or more, what is the development community's response to facilitate m-Banking?

Please join Michael Tetelman of AED, and Ann Casanova of CARANA, at the UN Foundation headquarters for a vibrant discussion of their work in overcoming legal and regulatory barriers to make local and intra-regional m-Banking a reality in the developing world.

July Technology Salon: Empowering m-Banking, Legally
Tuesday, July 15th, 8:30-10am,
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400,
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

Do note that seating is limited and the UN Foundation is in a secure building. So the first dozen (12) to RSVP will be confirmed attendance and then there will be a waitlist.

About the Speakers

• Ann Casanova is a lawyer with fourteen years of combined experience in multilateral trade negotiations, institutional strengthening, and management of USAID and IDB projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. Ms. Casanova joined CARANA Corporation in 2004 as Vice President of the firm's Trade Practice.
• Dr. Michael S. Tetelman is director of the dot-ORG program at the Academy for Educational Development (AED), and designs and manages innovative ICT infrastructure and applications projects that stimulate economic growth and improve the service delivery of governments and other institutions.

About the Technology Salon

Wayan Vota hosts the Technology Salon, an intimate and informal discussion around emerging trends in technology and international development, with a focus on both:

• technology's impact on donor-sponsored technical assistance delivery, and
• private enterprise driven economic development, facilitated by technology.

Active participation with your ideas, opinions, and predictions is actively encouraged, and Power Point presentations are banned. If you'd like to join us, please subscribe to get invitations.