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In 1791, Thomas Edison started a project– to build a worldwide network for people talk to each other.  And according to experts interviewed last week’s report in The Economist, we can expect to see this project finished in our lifetime—100 per cent global teledensity is expected within the next ten years.  Of course, 100 per cent does not mean absolutely everyone, since some people own several headsets and sim cards, but it comes pretty darn close.

These days it seems everyone has a story about how a cell phone has changed a person living in poverty’s life, but the in-depth research of exactly how mobile telecommunications is spurring economic growth is still being written. That’s why this special report is so exciting; it compares telecom across emerging markets, stringing both anecdotes and research together, and pulling out the trends.

Some of the facts:

• 3 out of the 4 billion mobile phones worldwide are being used by people in the developing countries.
• Studies show that adding ten phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts income per person by 8-10 percent.
• India leads the way with adding 128 million new subscribers in the last year, 89 million were added in China and 96 million across Africa.  Indonesia, Vietnam and Brazil are not far behind.
• Despite average customer spending $6.50 per month and .02cent calls, Indian operators still have a 40% profit margin, similar to Western operators.

While the article touches on nearly every region in the world, M-Pesa in Kenya has had the most success with using mobile phones for banking.  Here’s how it works: once a user is signed up using a mobile phone and an ID card, he or she pays cash to a vendor who then credits it to the phone account and gives the consumer a special code.  The code can be used to withdraw cash later or passed along to someone else. Around $2 million is transferred through the system every day, with an average transaction of $20.

There are many benefits to mobile banking–  no more carrying cash on long trips, keeping wealth in only livestock or jewelry, or risking losing the stash kept under the bed to a natural disaster.   Adoption of mobile banking in Kenya was aided by an unexpected cause, the 2008 post-election violence.  People that trapped in their homes in the slums during the violence used the system to send and receive money.  Some banks also lost the public’s trust because they were seen as taking sides in the ethnic conflict.

Many are studying M-Pesa in Kenya– so far there is no other country with such high rates of mobile banking adoption.  It seems only a matter of time before others reproduce the model; in many places the power of mobile brands are much stronger than that of the banks.

There’s much more to say – and hopefully more reports from The Economist to come –  but you should read the article for yourself!

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Reporting from Cinton Global Initiative

If so, Ashoka, the leading organization for social entrepreneurs, is an expert. Founder Bill Drayton defines innovation as a combination as: change making, empathy, teamwork & leadership.

Drayton believes that the world is currently going through a breakthrough – from being run by just a few people, to a world that is being run by teams of teams.

If there is one word that sums up this year’s CGI, it is ‘Innovation’.  John Kao, the founder of the Institute for Large Scale Innovation, believes that innovation cannot be learned, instead it is a combination of factors that all have to be woven together. He thinks of innovation as a ”property of society, as a set of muscles or capabilities to drive progress.”

It seems the discussion becomes, not what is innovation, but how can we build infrastructures of innovation?  Here’s the criteria I heard from various speakers at CGI:

-technology
-globalization & interconnectedness
-universities, research, subsidies and venture capitol,
-rotating leadership and teams,
-multi-disciplinary and horizontal approaches,
-policies that support for small and medium businesses,
-coalitions of private sectors, NGOs, government
-crowd-sourcing, user-generated and design thinking

reporting this week from the Clinton Global Initiative

By choosing ‘investing in women and girls’ as the topic for his opening plenary, President Clinton sent a message that women were at the center of his agenda. The panel embodied the CGI spirit of broad and innovative coalitions, with speakers from the government, private sector and women’s organizations.

Two CEOs sat on the stage: Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobile and Llyod Blankfein of Goldman Sachs.  They were joined by Melanne Verveer, the US ambassador for global women’s issues, Zainab Salbi, Women for Women International and Edna Adan, the founder of a maternity hospital in Somaliland.  Twelve new commitments for women in girls were announced at the session including training in entrepreneurship and financial literacy and access to low-cost technology.

On one hand, the unprecedented high-level private sector participation means that the women’s agenda has gone mainstream; real change will not happen if only women are talking to each other. On the other hand, the panel would not have succeeded if it hadn’t had two women from the trenches who could keep the discussion grounded in the life and death realities many women face.

But when the discussion turned to his corporate philosophy for focusing on women, Tillerson said that for empowering women, “money is not the issue”.   Easy for him to say as CEO of the world’s second largest company.

Zainab Salbi was quick to disagree, arguing that it is absolutely about increasing resources and  political commitments for women and girls.

Tillerson tried to backtrack, clarifying his remarks by saying it was about education, training and staff capacity, not just pouring money into a problem.

Still, it was a reminder that even though they may be sitting on the same stage, the reality of a woman’s organization and Exxon Mobile are quite far apart.  While it is “not about the money” for  Exxon, it is all about the money for thousands of women’s organizations like Salbi’s and Adan’s that are struggling to help women every day survive childbirth and rebuild their lives from war.

But the question seemed to open a door, and Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs reframed the question, asking: are we making all the investments that we can make in women and girls? are we at capacity?

I think the answer is a resounding no.   Stay tuned for more updates from CGI.

Things are changing for me, I will be moving from New York City to Bonn, Germany in 30 days.   Communication will take on a new meaning living in a place where I do not speak the language.   So I have been researching what to do!  One possibility is becoming a super-blogger and freelance writer.

So in my last days of privileged NYC access, I took a class on how to be a foreign correspondent at Media Bistro.   It was taught by an able-young-overachiever Manuela who got herself to China and kept pitching Newsweek until they listened.   This class helped me focus my writing strategy. For instance, even though I am going to Germany, I don’t plan to become a correspondent on German culture, because it will take ages for me to become ‘an expert’.   A travel writer perhaps.   But here are a few bits of wisdom about freelancing overseas that I took away from the course:

• Have a niche.  If my expertise is international development writing… it will still be that in Germany.  I still may get my best stories through a trip or a skype line.  Manuela’s theory is that despite the current devastation to magazines, niche publications will survive because their audiences are solid.
• To go into a new area, such as travel writing, I need to start from the bottom-up again, getting some clips in free sites to build up my portfolio.
• Joining the Foreign Correspondents association and writing for English-language newspaper is another way to break in.
• Don’t teach English…. but do consider teaching writing in English.
• Building a relationship with an editor is like being in sales — your pitch might not be accepted, but your goal is to get the next meeting, ie.  a response to your next email.
• Be sure of yourself.  Have a card, introduce yourself: I am a journalist.   If you take yourself seriously they will take you seriously.

I love this art by Mary Button, who came to our Kenya Youth Peace Summit.  You can see the entire series of paintings here.