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.

Over 300 million women are being left out of the benefits of mobile phone ownership as it becomes the most ubiquitous technology in the developing world, which has major implications given women's role in social and economic development.

Furthermore, the potential value of cell phone ownership increases as mobile services (mServices) including health, finance, and commerce become available - half of the women who do have mobile phones have either increased their income or looked for employment using them.

Yet how can value be shown in mobile phone gender parity? Where are the challenges to scaling mService implementations? And what's the typology of different mService applications themselves and their relation to women's use of mobiles?

For the July Technology Salon, Vital Wave Consulting's CEO, Brooke Partridge, will share her company's insights and the results of a major new report on the mobile phone gender gap - 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.

This ground-breaking analysis of emerging economies quantifies the opportunity for achieving gender parity in mobile phone ownership and characterizes the relationship that women have with mobile technology.

With detailed case studies, value chain models, and added opportunity identification from Vital Wave's own analysis, we'll explore the importance and the challenges of scaling mServices implementations across countries and genders.

Closing the Mobile Phone Gender Gap
July DC Technology Salon
Thursday, July 15, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

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.

Special Salon Exclusive!

For those that arrive early, we'll have a sneak peek at the new HUB: Health UnBound community from the mHealth Alliance. David Gutelius will provide a preview and explain how HUB will become an online network connecting the global health, health systems strengthening and technology communities, to improve health outcomes by reducing fragmentation and redundancy

Where the last SMS4D Technology Salon reminded us of the unique gift of mobile technologies to be implemented in the field, The Cloudy SMS4D Salon really drove home mobile phones as a multifunctional tool whose true impact is tied more to the usage than the technology itself.

While we gathered to discuss SMS4D, we really talked about heath reporting and outreach, education, and community building through knowledge management and sharing. It just so happened that these health projects were using SMS codes to report longitudinal child health statistics.

Data gathering in health, and even knowing when to gather data, is a huge burden, often relying on community health workers doing the healthcare version of the Training and Visit system of the agricultural extension world. Waiting around for a planned infrastructure is hopeless, but working with the more incremental nature of mobile can improve reporting rates and reduce errors -- "utter chaos works everywhere" being the best quote of this Technology Salon.

ChildCount+

Childcount builds on existing SMS reporting to enable community health workers to rapidly register children, note any symptoms or diseases they might have, improve patient tracking (and thereby reducing duplication), and schedule immunizations and outreach. The SMS "encoding" builds off of a simple and familiar paper form, which is handy for training (but less useful than a mango tree, as we'll see).

The runner-up quote from this Salon dealt with discussion around the potential risk of intentionally fabricated data -- "humans are awful at falsifying data" -- digitizing and quick, auditable reporting exposes both errors and lies.

Happy Pill

Winning the award for innovative ideas in mHealth was the HappyPill project -- instead of boring old SMS, HappyPills uses "flashing" - where you call a number and hang up immediately to "ping" someone. Usually, flashing is just a free way to ask someone to call you back, or you can sometimes work out extensive codes -- one missed call is just saying hi, two is call me back, three means an emergency, etc..

HappyPills takes this basic, essentially binary interaction and applies it to help improve adherence rates for prescription regimens. A medical center can send out flashes to their patients, and the patients are reminded to take their pills and would then flash back to signal that they took their medicine. It's naturally not foolproof, but hugely more cost effective (almost cost-free) in comparison with sending a community health worker out to the patient on a motorcycle to witness their pill-taking.

Jokko Initiative

It turns out that people are not just willing, but economically motivated and excited to use (and pay for) basic SMS-based services to improve their numeracy and literacy skills, improving their ability to communicate cheaply over their phones as well as better navigate market prices. In these low-technology communities, Tostan's Jokko Initiative is creating a curriculum to enable this via SMS.

Mango tree mobile phone menu navigation

They have also come up with an amazingly simple methodology to introduce people to menu systems using a mango tree metaphor which gracefully transitions from the concrete (planning a climbing route on a real tree to get to a specific mango) to the semi-concrete (the same, on a diagram of a tree), to the abstract (the tree diagram becomes the menu diagram, the mango a specific function).

Anyone who thinks that is too basic has never shown their grandparents a new shiny piece of technology, or had their entire worldview of user interface challenged by someone physically pointing a mouse at a screen).

Patatat

Patatat is an early-stage solution, which puts SMS into the role of a community town hall, newsletter, or email list. It removes not only the normal geographic barriers that a listserv gets around, but also infrastructure barriers, so (for example) farmers across a region or the world can share knowledge around their crops without relying on the grid and hardwired phones/Internet to do so.

This also centralizes costs to one "host" and minimizes it to the community, so a farmer could send one SMS (free to receive, costs to send), and the host would re-broadcast it to the entire "community." With Twitter already showing that it can (technically) report earthquakes faster than the earthquake itself spreads, this rebroadcasting tool also has clear applications in emergency announcements, citizen journalism and a myriad of other fields.

Technology or Development?

So, was this technology salon about technology, or was it about development projects? Sure, all of the projects discussed at the salon happened to use server and cloud-based SMS technologies. They also use paper, physical transportation, and people. That the technology is now moving from the focus of a project to being a (cool, exciting, powerful, still new-and-shiny) tool in the toolbox is truly heartwarming.

It means mobile phone ICT solutions are maturing into a cross-sector role and not into another silo, but a "pillar of excellence".

Now that your interest was piqued with last month's SMS for Development Technology Salon, get ready for SMS4D-2: the Cloudy Salon.

On June 10th, we're having another round of SMS-focused guests, this time their solutions are cloud-based vs. last month's local administration. Joining us will be:

• Matt Berg discussing ChildCount+, based on RapidSMS
• Gannon Gillespie explaining the Jokko Initiative from Tostan
• Mike McKay describing both Happy Pill and Patatat
• And Josh, James, Ben, and Wayan again on FronlineSMS usage models

You'll need to RSVP for this Salon via SMS. To join us, text SMS4D, your name, your organization to the live SMS:Gov demo at (202) 506-0148. For those that need an example, I would send "SMS4D, Wayan Vota, Inveneo" (w/o quotes).

Be sure to RSVP ASAP, as we only have room for 15 people, then there will be a waitlist - last month it was 45 people deep!

SMS4D-2: the Cloudy Salon
June DC Technology Salon
Thursday, June 10, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

We'll have Krispie Kreme donuts and coffee for a morning rush, and there is even a Salon Bonus: we'll be giving out a USB SMS router during the Salon - a $150 value, yours for free thanks to Inveneo.

The SMS4D Technology Salon focused on the power of Short Message Service (SMS) text technology to create scaled impact, starting at the local and regional level. We went through an inspiring round of implementations and use cases of on-the-ground efforts using FrontlineSMS in cross-sector development situations.

SMS:Gov demo at SMS4D Salon

Throughout the examples, we were constantly reminded that mobile phone-based development solutions - while they may be globally replicable - usually start locally.

Microfinance

Microfinance solutions, tying the payments to the notifications via mpayment were the purview of CreditSMS, lowering the costs of each loan by dramatically reducing transactional costs, allowing MFI account managers to deal with the exceptions (late/missed payments) instead of wasting time and making mistakes in tracking payments to records and managing each interaction.

mHealth

mHealth, a favorite topic of Tech Salons can use SMS to replace timely and costly travel to report medicine stock levels and local disease trends, but also mobile-centric medical records management and remote, low-cost diagnostics tools, all using SMS:Medic.

The data coming out of a tool like this also can bubble up into knowledge products -- a dashboard of geo-tagged symptoms linked to key infectious diseases would be invaluable at spotting outbreaks and managing stock levels, targeted outreach/intervention, or other responses.

eGovernment

Democracy and governance, another example of a sector with clear needs for interactivity and data-gathering, can benefit from SMS:Gov, enabling 311 style systems via SMS to go through a decision tree of interactive text messages to report problems or get information. Anything from reporting a pothole to figuring out what pest is destroying farmer crops. Local government could also data-mine the text message stream to track local trends and spot emerging problems - handily also increasing their likelihood at getting re-elected.

Education

Even mobile-enhanced education was discussed as SMS:Learn, and presented in a very realistic framing at the Salon as an assistance technology to existing educational programs. Trainers and educators could use decision tree text messages as an interactive learning tool or testing method to individualize learning.

Implementation

SMS provides robust measurement and evaluation data - each response is tied to a unique phone number and can be tracked over time. Local governments, donors, and implementing partners could use dashboards from all four of these solutions to monitor usage and effectiveness of various services and expose systemic problems.

Yet, SMS does have its drawbacks. Its visual and written, and not every user will find it an optimal interface, so SMS can be parried with other technologies, like interactive voice response or FM radio, for maximum impact.

Also as with politics, all change is local. The reverberating message from the SMS4D Salon was to have your technology where the decision-makers are. If you want local, on-the-ground reaction to a text message, then the actor and the technology need to be local and on-the-ground too.

Cloud-based, Internet-only apps have their place, but the beauty of locally-managed text messaging is that it operates off-grid. Truly mobile phone-leveraging solutions are those that can follow mobile devices to the place of use - regardless of electricity and Internet connectivity constraints.

Text messaging is a quick and targeted way to reach beneficiaries in the developing world. But you already know that. Yet have you seen an SMS router close-up? Experimented with proven solutions that you can use in your existing programs? Or brainstormed on how SMS could add sizzle to your next proposal?

In the May DC Technology Salon we will have live demonstrations of several real, deployable SMS solutions that are being developed by local experts right here in DC for use around the world focusing on:

• Microfinance
• mHealth & eHealth
• Democracy & Governance
• Education & Adult Learning

This Salon is now closed to new RSVP's - we had 50 requests for 15 slots in the first few hours and the waitlist is already too long to add anyone else.

In fact, you even need to RSVP via SMS! To join us, text TechSalon, your name, your organization to the live SMS demo at (202) 506-0148. For those that need an example, I would send "TechSalon, Wayan Vota, Inveneo" (w/o quotes). Be sure to RSVP ASAP, as we only have room for 15 people, then there will be a waitlist.

SMS for Development
May DC Technology Salon
Tuesday, May 18, 12:30-2pm
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

Be sure to be prompt - we'll have sandwiches and sodas for the quick folks - yet even tardy attendees can get in on the Salon Bonus: we'll be giving out a USB SMS router during the Salon - a $150 value, yours for free thanks to Inveneo.

On April 15th, we had a lively discussion on public-private partnerships with Robert Schneider, Senior Alliance Advisor, in the Office of Development Partnerships, Private Sector Alliances Division at USAID. Rob is the ICT partnerships lead for ODP/PSA, or as many may recognize better, the Global Development Alliances (GDA) office

Do note that while Rob Schneider presented at the meeting, these notes are not his statements or the position of USAID - this is my impression of the cumulative input of all twenty-five Technology Salon participants.

Evolution of Partnerships

Public-private partnerships, of which GDA's and PSA's are a subset, have moved from what was once more of a corporate social responsibility activity to assuage international critics, to become a key competitive business advantage for companies that may also improve relations with host country governments and the local communities in which they operate.

"Avoiding Nigeria" has also become a common refrain, as companies want to make sure the communities in which they operate see them as net benefactors, not as pure extractors.

"Picking Winners"

Good partnerships do not distort local markets; they drive increases in market size and new market penetration where there isn't currently a market to begin with. To take agricultural inputs as an example, when a donor subsidizes business loans for an innovative, first-mover company expansion or guarantees borrower payback of inputs, the donor is helping private enterprise realize the market potential in a risky market. The company, now understanding the risks and returns, can price accordingly, which over time helps other companies do the same - leading to competition, not monopolies.

Incorporating Small Companies

Often, we only hear of partnerships with Fortune 500-type companies and there can be the impression that alliances overlook small American companies and local country firms. To an extent this is true, but mainly because big firms have the capacity to invest the staff time and resources in building partnerships, and the resulting activities have outsize impact - changing Wal*Marts purchasing habits impacts the global retail market.

However,,USAID Missions are encouraged to have close relationships with local companies and many form partnerships with firms at the district and national levels..

Measurement & Evaluation

Funding for measurement and evaluation has been on the decline for years, which makes any level of assessment difficult. In addition, contracting mechanisms discourage long-term review of projects - expenses are not allowed after the contract period, which can be much too soon to see big impacts.

Even when evaluations are performed, they risk being suppressed. Politically, bad news is not encouraged by either public or private organizations, and private companies seeking to sustain a competitive advantage over rivals do not always welcome the publicity of good news.

Yet, social networking technologies like Facebook and Twitter, could allow greater beneficiary participation in evaluations without a large increase in resources.

Strategies for Success

Successful alliances usually are multi-party partnerships - several entities coming together to achieve common goals. This may be daunting at the onset, but by having several participants, partnerships have greater resources and can better survive the defection of a participant.

Concentrating efforts in countries with USAID missions that encourage public-private partnerships and are already bought-in to the benefits that alliances can bring is one way to increase the likelihood of success. However, not every Mission is focused on building alliances at the moment, so implementing partners should assess both mission and private sector appetite for partnership before spending a lot of time creating a partnership.

In addition, implementing partners should seek idea buy-in from all stakeholders - from private industry to USAID to local organizations - before they create a project or seek resources for it. This is key as staff turnover can derail projects if there isn't deep organizational commitment.

Other Impressions

For more participant impressions of the event, please check out PPPs and Sustainability by Matt Vanderwerff of IREX.

Global Development Alliances (GDA's) are USAID's innovative public-private alliance model to mobilize business and civil society to stimulate economic growth. Yet GDA's and Private Sector Alliances (PSA's) can be confusing and intimidating, especially when a proposal deadline is approaching too quickly.

Successful alliances take commitment, so invest a morning of your time learning how to create Private Sector Alliances with USAID, courtesy of Rob Schneider, Senior Alliance Advisor, Office of Development Partners.

Rob will explain the overall GDA strategy, dive into PSA's, and answer your ICT alliances questions at the next Washington DC Technology Salon:

USAID Private Sector Alliances
April DC Technology Salon
Thursday, April 15, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

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.

We at SSG Advisors are currently incubating a new approach to the delivery of higher education services that leverages both new technology and disruptive business models. We presented this model at last week's eLearning Technology Salon and I am very grateful for all of the thoughtful and useful input received

The Salon was a great chance to get very practical advice from leading experts in the fields of both education and ICT4D. Here are key points I raised in my opening remarks and input received from participants:

Why we're exploring eLearning solutions

• Skyrocketing Demand for Higher Education. Demand for higher education is expected to rise from 48 million seats in 1990 to 159 million seats by 2025 in Asia and Africa.
• Emergence of Affordable and Appropriate Technologies. Low-cost netbooks and Nettop PCs and the proliferation of broadband and 3G networks transform the economics of providing access to e-learning solutions.
• Potential for Disruptive Business Models. Over the last several years, SSG has developed some innovative business models for delivering broadband sustainably in rural areas of developing countries, like SSG's experience with the USAID Last Mile Initiative in Sri Lanka.

A disruptive business model for eLearning

Based on that experience, I put forward the idea of a disruptive business model for higher education delivery that had 3 characteristics:

1. A key element of the business model is the idea of moving away from per credit hour tuition and towards a monthly subscription fee. Monthly subscription fee service with 24/7 instructor support available online. Using a subscription fee structure would benefit students by encouraging them to complete coursework as quickly as possible. The availability of instructor support at any time enables students to fit their studies around work, family and other commitments. From a business standpoint, a subscription revenue model also better reflects the cost structure of maintaining a platform that includes instructor support on a 24/7 basis.


2. Both direct and shared access network for users. Here the idea is that better off students in urban/peri-urban areas would be able to access courses from home using a Netbook and a broadband connection. While that might be workable in Rural and lower-income students would have access through a network of franchised shared access centers.


3. Focus on General Education requirements. One way to ensure that such a model does not compete directly with developing country HEIs would be to focus on general education requirement courses rather than creating a degree-conferring program. The idea is that this both reduces costs for the student, who can complete a significant portion of degree-related work before matriculating to a bricks and mortar university and it also expands the number of available university seats. This is the model of straighterline.com and it enables the company to partner with universities and expand their reach rather than directly compete with them.

We received some great feedback from the audience on both the underlying assumptions and the business model itself.

Look at that eLearning idea

The technology of eLearning

On the technology side, it was pointed out that caching or USB sticks may offer an additional cost-saving mechanism for delivery of content in rural areas where the cost of broadband access may still be prohibitive. This makes a lot of sense as it is very easy to upload lectures, text and even exercises on to a USB stick and then rely on broadband connections only for chats, email and discussion boards. Another important point raised was the use of 3G phones (perhaps uploaded off of DVDs) to offer the delivery of lectures so that students can watch lectures while traveling to/from work each day.

I think these are very important points. For this model to work, it needs to be low-cost, but also offer the prospect of a consistent experience. USB drives would allow a student to use an icafe or telecenter PC, but still have the same learning experience as someone using a dedicated netbook. Also, the advantage of having course materials available in a mobile environment (whether through downloads or off of DVDs) is a significant benefit for students who may prefer to listen to a course lecture while riding the bus to work.

Infrastructure for eLearning

We also discussed whether a franchised shared access center was necessary or worth the investment. It was pointed out that the use of USB sticks would allow for a standardized learning environment, irrespective of the machine or its location. In this case, it may be more cost effective to have a distributor-style (or authorized retailer) relationship with existing icafes and telecenters rather than build new franchises. This approach makes a lot of sense in peri-urban areas where there may be fully commercial icafes. In rural areas where no current icafes or telecenters exist (or are too expensive), it may make more sense to have a franchised operation to ensure that rural students can affordably access coursework and materials.

The buyer demand for eLearning

While we assumed that there is a global demand for higher education, it became clear through the discussion that the proposed model may be more appropriate for Asia as opposed to Africa. Asian cultures tend to place a higher value on education so they may be more receptive to this model. Also, as a rule, most Asian countries have a higher teledensity and higher ICT skills base, so technology may be less of an impediment. Another key point is that in Africa there is a tradition of students being paid to attend university - obviously our model depends on a willingness for students and families to pay.

I think these are absolutely critical points and not ones we had considered when including Africa as part of our model. Our experience in this space is largely in South and Southeast Asia, so our assumptions are built on those markets. I do not think this model is viable in countries where there is no tradition (formal or informal) for paying for education services.

Accreditation and eLearning

Another key point in the discussion revolved around the importance of both regulatory and 'market' accreditation. In our model we propose addressing the regulatory accreditation issue through partnerships with national and US universities. With regard to the market accreditation, close relationships with key employers will be critical to success. If the employers feel that students who take courses through our proposed model are well-prepared for the workforce it will greatly increase our model's legitimacy.

It was pointed out that in some professions, eg nursing, there may be a preference for a degree-conferring program with specialized coursework. Here, I think we would need to see what the level of demand actually is. Becoming a degree-conferring institution is a major investment of time and money, so there would have to be a very high level of demand to justify that investment. It would also put our model in direct competition with host country universities, which could create further complications in obtaining the necessary accreditation.

Concluding Thoughts:

The feedback from the Technology Salon has been invaluable as we seek to develop and refine this business model further. I think the input shows we may be on the right track, but we still have quite a ways to go before we have a business model that we can translate into a bankable business plan.

Steve Schmida is the Managing Director at SSG Advisors, a small consulting, training and project management firm.

Young people make up 18 percent of the world's population today, or 1.2 billion in absolute terms. Of these 15-24 year-olds, 87% live in developing countries. At the same time, their basic educational needs are not being met. More than one-third of all youth around the world are not in the classroom - 73% of youth in sub-Saharan Africa and 51% in South and West Asia.

Yet developing world governments cannot expand traditional educational facilitates to these youth or the even larger cohort behind them. Demand for higher education in Asia and Africa will grow from 48 million enrollments in 1990 to 159 million enrollments in 2025, but India spent only 3.2% of GDP in 2005 on education, ranking it 140th of 180 countries tracked by the CIA World Factbook.

Look at that eLearning idea

The inability of developing countries to meet the demand for quality secondary and higher education has a direct impact on economic growth. Researchers at Harvard University estimate that:

"a one-year increase in tertiary education stock would raise the long-run steady-state level of GDP of Africa GDP per capita due to factor inputs by 12.2%."

So improving access to higher education is one of the best investments that donor agencies, foundations, and governments can make. Now what if it were possible to nearly double the number of secondary and university seats in a developing country overnight and with relatively little investment from the public sector?

Steve Schmida, founder of SSG Advisors, believes that eLearning - the provision of educational opportunities via information and communication technologies - could have that kind of scale with recent advances in electronic content creation and the proliferation of technology devices. He's developed ideas around the three main questions eLearning models bring forth:

1. What do these new eLearning pedagogical models look like?
2. How can new business models make eLearning services affordable?
3. Who will validate or accredit eLearning programs?

Join us in a Technology Salon lead by Steve, that will discuss these three questions with the hope to answer a forth: What effect would scaled eLearning in higher education have on economic growth in Africa and Asia?

eLearning's Promise: Will New Models Educate Youth?
March DC Technology Salon
Thursday, March 4, 8:30-10am
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Mass Avenue, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 (map)

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.