


Three Stand-Out Organizations for Bicycle-use in the Developing World

FrontlineSMS is an open-source software that enables two-way text messaging between cheap mobile phones and laptops over cellular (GSM) networks.
FrontlineSMS: Credit
FrontlineSMS:Credit aims to make every formal financial service available to the entrepreneurial poor in 160 characters or less. By meshing the functionality of FrontlineSMS with local mobile payment systems, implementing institutions will be able to provide a full range of customizable services, from savings and credit to insurance and payroll.
FrontlineSMS: Learn (not finished yet)
FrontlineSMS:Learn leverages ubiquitous mobile technology—SMS or “text messaging”—to support and strengthen education and training initiatives and human capacity development and make learning opportunities available anytime and anywhere. Using the application knowledge and higher-order reasoning and decision-making skills can be developed, reinforced and assessed leading to improved transfer of learning, increased knowledge retention, long-term changes in behavior and, ultimately, improvements in service delivery.
FrontlineSMS: Legal (new)
These low-cost systems enable remote coordination between informal dispute resolution workers and the formal legal system, improving service delivery, range, and cost efficiency.
In addition to this core platform, FrontlineSMS:Legal is developing additional plug-ins that will add value to local organizations working to provide legal services. FrontlineSMS:Legal products offer several key functionalities:
Continue reading “Open Source Mobile Tech (SMS) Platforms for Credit, Education, Legal, and Medical”

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block female employees from suing on behalf of as many as 1.5 million women in what would be the largest gender-bias suit against a private employer in U.S. history.
. . . . . . .
The company agreed in 2008 to pay as much as $640 million to settle 63 federal and state class actions claiming the company cheated hourly workers and forced them to work through breaks.
. . . . . .
The case is Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes.
Tip of the Hat to Monica Nixon at LinkedIn.
WAL-MART–Proud to be the Enron of the Retail Industry.
Review: Wal-Mart–The High Cost of Low Price (2005)
Review: An Atlas of Poverty in America–One Nation, Pulling Apart, 1960-2003
Review: Big-Box Swindle–The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses
Review: No Logo–No Space, No Choice, No Jobs (Paperback)
Review: The Global Class War –How America’s Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win it Back (Hardcover)
Review: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Paperback)
Review: Nobodies–Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy
Review: Screwed–The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — And What We Can Do About It
Review: The People’s Business–Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy The People’s Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy
To paraphrase Yogi Berra it's déjà vu all over again for KBR.
In my Aug. 31 post I wrote about a significant pro-veteran ruling in the Oregon KBR Qarmat Ali litigation. This is the case where Oregon National Guard troops allege KBR's liability for negligence and for fraud arising out of plaintiffs' exposure to sodium dichromate and resultanthexavalent chromium poisoning while assigned to duty at the Qarmat Ali water plant in 2003.
Paul Papak, the federal district judge rejected the motion by KBR and co-defendants to dismiss the suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and rejected it.

Huawei Android Smartphone ‘Ideos' Going To T-Mobile: Report
A few weeks into the future and an ad in the newspaper may look like this– looking for a Google powered smart phone? just spend $50- Amazed? Well that is what is the target of HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES and T-MOBILE US inclusive. The former a Chinese telecom equipment provider and the latter the fourth largest US mobile carrier.
The Ideos was unveiled on Thursday in Berlin. Ideos is an Android 2.2, the latest version of Google Inc.'s free mobile operating system; ensembles a 2.8-inch touch screen; and can be a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing other devices to connect to the Internet. Ideos is better option to all these who aren't willing to pay exorbitant for devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone or Verizon Wireless's Droid lineup. Such brands typically retail for more than $500 without a contract, or $200 with a two-year contract.
Phi Beta Iota: Free cell phones to the poor, and call centers that educate them free “one cell call at a time,” are the foundation for creating infinite new wealth. What most do not appear to understand is that just as with the genius of Gillette (sell the shave, not the shaver), in the 21st Century the cell phone and connectivity should be free, and it is the transmitted knowledge that is monetized (not sold, but monetized, e.g. early warning from farmers on disease strains, Twitters on earthquakes, etcetera.)
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Posted: Sep 4, 2010
The world’s population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years — and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth.
This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you’ll see).
Watch the 10 Minute Video from TED: Hans Rosling on global population growth
Phi Beta Iota: This is consistent with the report of the UN High-Level Threat Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, which identified POVERTY as the top threat to humanity, in part because it spawns everything else including Infectious Disease (#2), Environmental Degradation (#3, the poor doing more damage than all the corporations on the planet), and so on. See also:
Review: A More Secure World–Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
Review: Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail
Design for the Other 90% Exhibit + “Micro-Giving” Global Needs Index to Connect Rich to Poor/Fullfill Global-to-Local Requests
Review: Building Social Business–The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs
Review: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid–Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Hardcover)
Review: Revolutionary Wealth (Hardcover)
Review: State of the World 2010–Transforming Cultures–From Consumerism to Sustainability
Review: Corruption and Anti-Corruption–An Applied Philosophical Approach
Reference: World Brain Institute & Global Game
Search: Strategic Analytic Model
** DNI ADVISORS FAVOR NON-COERCIVE “INTELLIGENCE INTERVIEWING”
** RARE EARTH ELEMENTS: THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN (CRS)
** THE TWILIGHT OF THE BOMBS
The ISB study notably dissected the “ticking time bomb” scenario that is often portrayed in television thrillers (and which has “captured the public imagination”). The authors patiently explained why that hypothetical scenario is not a sensible guide to interrogation policy or a justification for torture. Moral considerations aside, the ISB report said, coercive interrogation may produce unreliable results, foster increased resistance, and preclude the discovery of unsuspected intelligence information of value (pp. 40-42).
Extract on Rare Earths Global Supply Chain:
Rare earth elements — of which there are 17, including the 15 lanthanides plus yttrium and scandium — are needed in many industrial and national security applications, from flat panel displays to jet fighter engines. Yet there are foreseeable stresses on the national and global supply of these materials. “The United States was once self-reliant in domestically produced [rare earth elements], but over the past 15 years has become 100% reliant on imports, primarily from China,” a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service observes. “The dominance of China as a single or dominant supplier […] is a cause for concern because of China’s growing internal demand for its [own rare earth elements],” the report said.