New Apps for the Bottom Billion

technologyreview.com

11 points·easy··5 comments

> this form of payment for a person working just two hours a day every day could equate to about $21 a month—12 percent of the average monthly wage in the region.

Unless the average person in the region works 2 / .12 = 16.67 hours per day every day (do they?) this is a pretty raw deal.

Not long ago this was a big new feature being advertised for new phones. "Look! Picture messaging! Isn't that amazing" and already it's so old it's been forgotten. The world moves so fast!

I'm pretty sure the bottom billion still don't own cellphones. But this is a smart idea for the bottom billion of cellphone owners.

It was 5 billion in 2010: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-10454065-78.html

Life for the average person in the bottom billion isn't great, but it's getting better.

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...

A cell phone can indeed be the one and only relatively high-tech possession for a poor family in an impoverish region. Used cell phones and/or low-end handsets subsidized by the carrier help them proliferate.

Vaguely tangential, a UCLA professor developed a microscope attachment for a cell phone camera, to permit remote phlebotomy and other telemedicine in areas lacking facilities otherwise. http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/newsroom/featured-news/archive/...

A good overview of this style of tech innovation is the Smithsonian Institute's "Design for the Other 90%." http://archive.cooperhewitt.org/other90/other90.cooperhewitt...

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