Society | DOI: 10.1145/1409360.1409367
Samuel Greengard
upwardly mobile
Mobile phones are bridging the digital divide and transforming many
economic, social, and medical realities, particularly in developing nations.

Fe W TechNologies have impacted the world as significantly as the mobile phone. The ability to connect with others anywhere and anytime has changed the way people think and behave. Yet, beyond phone calls, messaging, Internet access, the ability to snap photographs, and share data, these wireless devices have ushered in profound social changes that ripple into commerce, banking, healthcare, and beyond. “It is the first time in the history of technology that social class and geography are largely irrelevant,” says Jhonatan Rotberg, a lecturer at MIT.

Although mobile phones have already transformed more affluent nations, they are ringing up some of the most profound changes—and biggest dividends—in developing countries, where new and innovative ideas, services, and methods of interaction are rapidly emerging. Today, people are using mobile phones to track crop prices in Kenya and manage micropayments in the Philippines. They are tapping into these devices to handle healthcare information in Nicaragua and oversee bakery orders in Nigeria.

In fact, with an estimated three bil-lion-plus mobile phones in use worldwide and approximately 80% of the world’s population within the reach of a cell tower, almost no corner of the globe remains untouched. “As the number of mobile phones has grown, an accompanying explosion in innovative approaches to using mobile technologies has taken place,” says Jonathan Donner, a social scientist and researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India.

Mobile technology, Donner says, “is creating broader economic and social development opportunities. Yet, at the same time, it raises questions about how we use the technology and the types of norms and expectations that should exist.”

Dialing into a Better Life

Although the idea for a mobile phone dates back to 1915 and wireless radio devices have been used for much of the 20th century, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the technology took off in a significant way. As the size of mobile phones shrunk and the devices became simpler and more powerful, consumers began to snap them up in order to stay connected at work and in their personal life. Meanwhile, developing nations, which often had little wired infrastructure, began embracing mobile technology as a way to leapfrog expensive telecommunications investments and put phones in the hands of citizens.

The ability to skip straight to mobility has created remarkable economic opportunities. Jonathan Ledlie, a researcher for Nokia in Cambridge, MA, points out that without an existing infrastructure and legacy systems for

“for the first time
in history, information
is no longer the
exclusive domain
of the powerful and
the rich,” says mit
lecturer Jhonatan
Rotberg. “the
ubiquity of mobile
devices is changing
the political and
economic dynamics
around the world.”

handling financial transactions and human interactions, entrepreneurs in developing countries have become astute at inventing applications and processes that tap into the needs of these societies. “In some instances, entrepreneurs are deploying capabilities that are more advanced or innovative than those of developed nations,” Ledlie observes.

The need for a person-to-person payment system prompted U.K.-based Vodafone to roll out a mobile banking system called M-pesa in July 2007. Vodafone predicted that it would sign up 200,000 subscribers in Kenya during the first year. Instead, it quickly exceeded the projections and acquired 1. 6 million customers. Vodafone is now set to introduce mobile banking in neighboring Tanzania as well as India.

Meanwhile, firms such as Wizzit in South Africa and GCASH in the Philippines have introduced systems that allow customers to make purchases, payments, and withdrawals through the post office and kiosks. Those holding accounts can also exchange money and credits directly with others using these systems. And in places where no formal micropayment system exists, people have turned to their mobile phones as a way to exchange pre-paid phone card minutes via short message service (SMS).

Mobile technology is also changing how people farm. Sugarcane growers in Warana, India use their phones to check on water levels, fertilizer stock, and other supplies needed to run a cooperative, Donner says. With 70,000 farmers spread across 75 villages, buying and managing PCs is too expensive and impractical. Instead, an application using SMS disperses information to subscribers across the network. At the same time, some microentrepre-neurs use mobile phones to expand their customer base. Donner tells the