Friday, December 18, 2009
This is my final paper for the Master of Communication in Digital Media program’s Emerging Markets in Digital Media class, taught by the insightful and capable Anita Verna Crofts. I had a lot of time for research and preparation in writing this paper, and was drawing on topics in which I have considerable professional experience [...]
Friday, December 18, 2009
This animation illustrates a simplified hypothetical case for using mobile phones to provide the payment and distribution infrastructure for ecommerce consumer cooperatives in emerging markets. For more on this proposed business model, please read: eCommerce Co-operatives for Emerging Markets.
Friday, November 13, 2009
In reading the articles When Radio Meets Mobile in Pakistan and Mobiles in Citizen Media, I found myself having a strange reaction for a media technologist. I became excited by the first article as it described the ways in which the widespread use of cellphones with built-in FM radio receivers in Pakistan has enabled access [...]
The role of mobile phone technology in creating a conduit for the transfer of funds in countries with emerging markets is not a technical surprise. As far back as the 1970s, prognosticators accurately described how someday home personal computers would allow online banking. Even the cheapest cell phone available today has more processing power than [...]
This past June’s New Yorker profile of the newest richest man in the world, Mexico’s Carlos Slim, could be taken as a case study in privatization of communication utilities. Or it could just be the story of one man and one country. Either way, I find it particularly interesting as I’ve had some visibility of [...]
Disagreements about applying resources to alleviating the suffering of poverty have deep roots. Two thousand years ago, in a oft-quoted passage from the Bible, Jesus told his disciples not to worry if they missed an opportunity to give money to the poor because “The poor you will always have with you,” and therefore there’s always [...]
This is my Reflection Paper for week two of the Emerging Markets in Digital Media class. Free PDF download: The Case of the Occasionally Cheap Computer: Low-cost Devices and Classrooms in the Developing World In the first three chapters of “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits,” C. K. Prahalad [...]
The first weekly reflection paper for the class I’m taking this quarter in the Master of Communication in Digital Media program. The class is Emerging Markets in Digital Media, taught by Anita Verna Crofts, Director of Communication and Outreach for the Global Health Leadership Program.