from PopTech:
The future of microfinance?
The way Ben Lyon sees it, the finance world is in the middle of a revolution, and the simple text message is at the heart of it.
Lyon created a system to bring formal financial services to microfinance institutions and poor entrepreneurs via a mobile phone. He believes the new software, to be launched by the organization he founded, FrontlineSMS:Credit, could change the world of microfinance by changing the way the poor interact with the institutions.
The self-described “ideas man” will be among the first speakers at this week’s annual PopTech conference, held in Camden, Maine.
“We’re in the middle of a financial revolution,” Lyon said. “The way the global poor interact with the global financial system is completely shaking up the world. It’s changing everything. There’s nothing more anonymous than a cash transaction. As more people find it useful to use mobile money, the data from those transactions will be housed forever and it’s no longer anonymous so we become less susceptible to fraud and all sorts of efficiencies and transparencies are gained.”
In Africa, over 300 million people have cell phones but for many access to banks is quite limited, or non-existent, especially for those living in remote regions.
So far, there are over 13 million users of a mobile phone-based service in Kenya called M-PESA that allows users to open a virtual bank account, send money, check balances, pay bills, and save. An average of just under $2 million is transferred through M-PESA each day, mainly in small amounts ranging around $20 per transaction.
Mobile drug authentication app needs work
Ghanaian entrepreneur Ashifi Gogo has developed a mobile-based technology he believes can help consumers and pharmaceutical companies fight back against drug counterfeiters in developing nations. But experts said his solution needs work.
Gogo, a 28-year-old Dartmouth College engineering graduate, co-founded Sproxil Inc. to end the “menace” of counterfeit drugs in West African countries such as Nigeria, where he said up to 80 percent of the over-the-counter medication bought by consumers is fake.
Gogo said when consumers purchase a drug protected by his trademarked Mobile Product Authentication technology, it comes with a scratch code that provides them with a number they can enter into their cellphone as a text and get an immediate text response back on whether the product they just bought was real or fake (read original story here).
Last month Sproxil announced a partnership with Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control and drug company Biofem Pharmaceuticals Ltd. to employ Sproxil’s anti-counterfeiting technology to cover about a million units. “There are other companies or people who tend to talk about the solution or advocate for it, but I can tell you that nobody else is working this close with a drug regulatory authority to implement this and nobody really has a product on the market yet. We’re the first to do this and we’re really excited about it.”
THE PITCH
The World Health Organization estimated about a third of all the drugs sold to developing nations are fake and last year a report issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime predicted the global trade in fake pharmaceuticals would hit $75 billion by the end of this year – an increase of 90 percent since 2005.
“It’s growing at a rate that’s much faster than the rate at which genuine pharmaceuticals are growing,” said Gogo, who bootstrapped the business with about $100,000 from business partners, friends and family. In addition Gogo won a $10,000 grant from the Clinton Foundation and another $100,000 from the Washington, DC- based African Diaspora Marketplace, a not-for-profit organization sponsored by U.S. AID and Western Union that provides grants to African American entrepreneurs creating jobs in Africa. “So it shows you the kind of range that we’re dealing with. Best case you’re 1 out of 3; worst case you’re 4 out of 5.”
This is a great idea that i personally have been trying to work on as my Masters project in Information Systems.
When u look at Africa, the mobile phone is one of the most technological device that is found almost everywhere and if we capitalize on this, we can be able to make a difference. I believe that to impact Africa the mobile phone must be put to maximum use with mobile applications that run on the basic mobile phones.
U.S. program helps African entrepreneurs
Ronald Mutebi can now do in three months what might have taken him a year. With his $100,000 share of a grant to benefit Africa, the entrepreneur will soon be sending solar ovens to his native Uganda.
Mutebi obtained exclusive Ugandan rights to market the units from Illinois-based maker Sun Ovens International. His goal is to reduce the country’s dependence on wood and agricultural waste products for cooking fuel.
Mutebi was one of 14 African American entrepreneurs, selected from a group of 58 finalists and more than 700 applicants, awarded just under $1.4 million in total grants at last week’s inaugural African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM) in Washington, DC. The ADM is a joint public-private initiative on behalf of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Western Union, aimed at boosting employment in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to USAID data, there are more than 1.4 million African immigrants in the United States, many of whom are entrepreneurs who operate small businesses in their native countries and send money back to their homelands. In 2008 an estimated $10 billion in remittance flowed back to sub-Saharan Africa from U.S.-based African diaspora members, according to USAID.
Anne McCarthy, Western Union’s Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs, said the process was started 18 months ago after a conversation between her company and USAID. McCarthy said ADM was inspired by Western Union’s involvement in another collaboration – the “4 + 1″ program – with the Mexican government and U.S.-based Mexican migrant associations that provided joint funding to businesses that had “the best chance to create employment and economic growth in key areas.” McCarthy said it created a couple thousand jobs.
“The root cause driving migration is the need for jobs,” said McCarthy, who is also involved in Western Union’s “Our World, Our Family” initiative that provides $50 million to create economic opportunity and education around the world. McCarthy added the ADM was a product of “looking at something that was more than just providing aid, but was creating long-term, sustainable and profitable businesses that created employment.”
Mutebi, the founder of Chicago-based IT consulting firm Tek Consults Group, and the other entrepreneurs submitted detailed business plans for what their budgets would be over a three-year period, which included the level of employment their companies will achieve each year. They also included how much funding they would raise on their own, with the idea that ADM would match that amount in the form of a grant.
This program is amazing! Solar cooking, especially in tropical regions, is the answer to deforestation and so many other critical issues.
