Connected Wisdom of Mobile Community for Social change

I have been privileged this past week to attend Mobileactive08 in Johannesburg. This has been a global conference with 370 delegates from 40 countries. Go to www.mobileactive08.org for more details about the conference.

Here are some random thoughts from the conference. My worldview has changed after this week.

Mobiles can be used to pay lobola when you are not in the same country as the parents of the bride.

Mobiles have huge impact and bring about a change at the bottom of the pyramid for rural people.

Only 1% of Burma have cellphones and the government continues to control communication

There is a great product in South Africa called Wizzit that is bringing banking to the unbanked.
11 million in SA with no bank accounts
600 million out of 900 million in Africa have no access to bank accounts
There are 30 million cellphones in South Africa

A whole business has been started in South Africa through the Missed Call or Please call me message.... there are 30 million of these calls EVERYDAY in SA

Adding a message on the bottom of these calls has added change to both commercial and social causes.

Mixit is being used to help children with maths

Mindset and Nokia are working on a program to improve maths and science for girl students through cellphones.

There was a launch of the new portal for SANGOnet last night. go to www.ngopluse.org to join

The challenge after this event is to collaborate and help to bring about change that can make a real difference.

Thank you to all the international and local funders that brought this event to South Africa.