Author Archive
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Let’s solve his ICT4D challengesThe Technology Salon returns to Washington DC this September 25th to explore an innovative initiative from USAID: ICT4D Challenges.
Akin to the contests that had Lindbergh cross the Atlantic and Rutan/Branson cross into space, ICT4D challenges (contests, makeovers, and competitions) will leverage user-driven innovation to create ICT-based solutions for major development challenges, with the incentive of cash prizes and possible inclusion in a USAID project. These challenges will spur innovation at the nexus of development and technology while forging new connections between the technology and development communities.
What better forum to explore where USAID is going with these challenges and help shape that path than the Technology Salon, our intimate and informal discussion of technology and development?
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The future bank tellerFor 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.
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Rabi KarmacharyaThere is much talk about One Laptop Per Child, Nicholas Negroponte idea of a “$100 laptop” empowering education in the developing world. Yet the focus tends to be on the XO laptop itself, not the overall impact of the program on both technology and education.
For the next Technology Salon on June 3 at 5:30pm, we’ll move pass the headlines and into the field with two special guests:
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Mobile phones have established themselves as the communication and networking platform of choice for billions of the world’s consumers, most of whom are at the base of the global economic pyramid. Worldwide, mobile phone subscribers outnumber Internet users almost 3 to 1, with much of that gap coming from skyrocketing mobile phone use in Africa, India and China.
Yet new mobile computing platforms, such as the XO laptop from One Laptop Per Child and the Asus Eee PC promise to radically change Internet access with breakthrough portability, performance, power and price. Does “4P Computing” pose a challenge to mobile phone dominance, or does each approach blend into the other? -
One year ago this week, One Laptop Per Child changed its mission, dropping its invitation for lower-cost alternatives to the XO laptop. Was that a reaction just to Intel’s Classmate PC, or amazing foresight?
Either way, a year later we are witnessing a dramatic change in the low-cost laptop marketplace. New low-cost laptops, or as I am now calling them, 4P Computing (Power, Performance, Portability, Price) are popping up daily with entrants from the practical Asus Eee PC to the seemingly comical Van Der Led.