Technovelopment Tools

In my last post, I promised that I’d take a look at some specific examples of new and emerging technologies that could play a huge role in furthering development efforts.

Most people have heard of Moore’s Law, a computing maxim that suggests that with price held constant, the processing power of computers will double every 24 months.   Less well known, though no less powerful, is Gilder’s Law, named for the American writer George Gilder.   Gilder’s Law suggests that the cost of transferring (or “communicating”) one bit (or “piece”) of information is cut in half every 12 months.

In my very first post, I recounted the fact that in 1946, a three-minute phone call from New York City to London, England cost $650.   Today, of course, that same call costs a few pennies.   Gilder’s Law explains how this could happen.   At the same time, it points toward a future where all communications are free, or so very close to free (i.e. tiny, tiny fractions of a penny) that it makes no real difference.

Of course, while the communications themselves may be free, there’s a lot of very expensive hard infrastructure that’s required to support those communications: fibre networks, wireless networks, satellite networks, etc.  It takes a lot of money to make telecommunications free... or, as some might say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

On the other hand, no one wants to pay $650 for a phone call they can make for free from the neighbour’s house.   And no business wants to pay $650 for a phone call when their competitor can make it for free.   This is why there’s so much pressure in the industrialized northern nations to continuously and continually upgrade telecommunications and technology infrastructure.   The same pressures, of course, apply in developing nations and regions – but the financial wherewithal to build out the costly infrastructure is severely limited.   Even in the industrialized world, there are many remote, rural and aboriginal communities that have been bypassed by the vagaries of telecommunications infrastructure, and exist beyond “the last mile”, unable to access the cutting edge telecommunications systems so close at hand.   This is, in part, what drives the Digital Divide – the technological, economic and (increasingly) social gap between those people who do have access to the tools and technologies of the information economy, and those who do not.   The challenge for developers is to find creative and innovative ways to help communities bridge the digital divide, and build the tools that will allow them to “leap frog” from those 1946 phone systems to systems that will allow them to participate in (or compete in) the wider world.

One of the first to make waves on this front was Bangladeshi financier Iqbal Qadir.   I met Qadir at the Millennium Summit at the UN in New York in 2000, and he told me how he’d taken the fortune he’d earned on Wall Street, and started to look for ways to apply it to opportunities back home in Bangladesh.   He was intrigued by the work of Muhammad Yunus, the economist who had launched the world famous Grameen Bank microcredit lending program in 1983.   Qadir was intrigued by the manner in which small investments unleashed latent economic potential from within even small and impoverished communities, while simultaneously opening the door to significant social improvements.   Inspired, Qadir launched his own company, called Grameenphone, in 1997.

Recognizing that Bangladesh was trapped by its aging telecommunications infrastructure, and unable to afford the costs of “leap frogging” to new technology, Qadir decided to use emerging technologies to create a business that would bridge the gap.  Grameenphone put cellular telephones into the hands of women in rural and remote communities without telephony infrastructure; each woman was responsible for purchasing the telephone, but was also provided with support to launch a small business selling air time and phone use to other villagers.   The programs was hugely successful, generating an income for the women involved, improving communications opportunities across the country, and opening the door to new economic opportunities (local farmers, for example, were able to use the communications tools to determine where they could market their crops for the highest prices).   Today, Grameenphone has 16 million customers, and annual revenues of $700 million.

In a sense, Grameenphone began as a model of how to use telecommunications to spur development.   But where is the next generation of telecom development technology?   And what models exist for bringing this new technology to developing or underdeveloped communities in a cost-effective and practical way?

One of the more exciting possibilities out there is a Canadian firm called N.E. Ware Communications, which has just released a new tool called the WiPOT, (or “Wireless Plain Old Telephone”).   The WiPot system essentially allows for the conversion of a wireless signal – which may be transmitted over great distances – into an analog (rather than digital) signal.   So what?  Well, essentially, this allows that antiquated 1946 phone system to tap into the wonders of emerging wireless technology.   But it takes things a step further, too, by allowing a range of other technologies that rely on old-fashioned wired infrastructure to move into the wireless era – such as bank machines and debit card transactions.   In theory, the WiPOT system allows you to send a wireless signal to a remote community, and then “dumb down” the digital feed so that anyone can safely and securely use “Plain Old Telephone” to access a range of cutting edge applications.   Not only could it be used to put local networks of telephones into currently unserviced and cut off areas, it could also be sued to deliver Internet access and even IPTV to those communities.   At the same time, it could put ATM-based banking services into the community without fixed infrastructure linking the systems to major centres – imagine being able to do debit-based financial transactions on an Indian Reservation in a remote region of North Dakota, or to build out an ATM-based micro-lending program in Eritrea.

The WiPOT was originally designed for use in North American convention centres, where the goal was to replace the expensive and time consuming build out of customized, hardwired infrastructure that was required for every single trade show, conference or convention with a flexible, wireless system that could support both analog and digital tools, such as providing both Internet access and debit card transactions from a single trade show booth.  When I first met the company's founders in 2006, during their early testing phase, the development applications immediately jumped out...

Presumably, there are a lot of quiet WiPOTs out there – cutting edge tools with huge implications for how we pursue development strategies in communities around the world.   Perhaps you can think of some other exciting uses for the WiPOT technology – I know the company is eager for feedback and ideas.   But perhaps you’re aware of another emerging tool that the development community could benefit from.   The first step in bridging the digital divide is sharing the information, so let’s get the ball rolling!

Next: Waiting for the $100 Laptop