Category: Articles & Chapters

Cell phones may help “save” Africa
By Rhett Butler, mongabay.com
July 11, 2005 [Corrected July 18, 2005]

For all the talk about “making poverty history” through aid and debt relief at the G8 meeting in Scotland and among aging rock stars at Live8 concerts, perhaps the best tool for poverty alleviation on the continent is the mobile phone. Yes, that ubiquitous handheld device has done wonders for the poor around the world.

Cell Phones For The People
Mobile companies may make the most money by going downscale

When it comes to sexy mobile phones, the stars of the moment are multimedia wonders such as the new RAZR V3x handset from Motorola Inc. (MOT ) and Nokia Corp.'s (NOK ) top-of-the-line N-90 camera phone with Carl Zeiss optics. Yet for all the attention they grab, these pricey gizmos are a sliver of the 800 million unit-per-year mobile-phone business. Increasingly, the real action is at the unglamorous end of the scale, among bare-bones Nokia and Motorola models priced under $50. Sales of such phones, which often handle just voice and text messaging, could grow 100% annually for the next five years.

In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit

Technological advances have allowed hundreds of small Chinese companies, some with as few as 10 employees, to churn out what are known here as shanzhai, or black market, cellphones, often for as little as $20 apiece.

Phi Beta Iota: Now imagine a global program that recycled every cell phone from the one billion rich; that set standards for unlocking all cell phones, and that ultimately got the cost of putting a used cell phone or a new low-cost cell phone into the hands of each of the five billion poor to just under $6.00.

Published Sep 4 2010 by Ceasefire Magazine

The End of the World-as-we-know-it in 10 years? And the rise of the post-carbon era…

Only 500 generations ago, hunter-gatherers began cultivating crops and forming their tiny communities into social hierarchies. Around 15 to 20 generations ago, industrial capitalism erupted on a global scale.

In the last generation, the entire human species, along with virtually all other species and indeed the entire planet, have been thrown into a series of crises, which many believe threaten to converge in global catastrophe: global warming spiraling out of control; oil prices fluctuating wildly; food riots breaking out in the South; banks collapsing worldwide; the spectre of terror bombings in major cities; and the promise of ‘endless war’ to fight ‘violent extremists’ at home and abroad.

We are running out of time.

Phi Beta Iota: The entire article is a distillation of the author's new book, now at Amazon UK and soon at Amazon US.  The article ends with a sensible coherent list of “must do's” that should be–but are not–understood by one and all.

Dr. Ahmed is interviewed on the BBC World News here.

Original article available here