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Tag Archives: Teleuse@BOP


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Teleuse@BOP research presented to Indian media academics

There is a massive mismatch between the supply and demand for education in journalism and electronic media in India. All media markets, MSM and new, are booming, with a massive demand for people to work in them. Demand is being met mostly by unaccredited private establishments, and by on-the-job training.
The government appears to [...]

Users as innovators

LIRNEasia has been, for some time, documenting how users at the Bottom of the Pyramid are innovating with ICTs. This story has the views of Eric von Hippel, the guru of the “users and innovators” school on how Twitter has mobilized users as innovators.
In the next several weeks, Twitter users will discover two new [...]

Why refuseniks get mobile phones

I have always been interested in why people refuse convenient technologies that most of us take for granted. I recall visiting Amish country in Pennsylvania with a friend, Diane Zimmerman, who had written a book on their refusal to use the phone within their homes. Now the NYT has done an interesting piece [...]

LIRNEasia CEO speaks on mobile path to the Internet Economy at the OECD

Rohan Samarajiva, LIRNEasia Chair and CEO, made the lead presentation on access to ICTs at an OECD/infoDev Workshop on the Internet Economy yesterday in Paris. The workshop, “Policy coherence in the application of information and communication technologies for development,” is currently underway.
In his presentation, Dr Samarajiva described the new “Budget Telecom Network Model” developed in [...]

How the developing world may participate in the global Internet Economy: Innovation driven by competition

Full participation in the global Internet Economy requires electronic connectivity of considerable complexity. Today, due to a worldwide wave of liberalization and technological and business innovations in the mobile space, much of the world is electronically connected, albeit not at the levels that would fully support participation in the global Internet Economy. Yet, many millions [...]

India: Reliance promotes rural mobile services

Reliance was at the presentations we made on teleuse@BOP3 results about awareness, trial and use of more-than-voice applications on mobiles. We can only speculate whether our results were used in the design of the services described by The Hindu:
RCom is launching three initiatives — BharatNet plan, Grameen VAS and M2M (Machine to [...]

World Economic Forum reads LIRNE.NET publications

Reading the WEF and INSEAD Global Information Technology Report 2008-09, I was struck by the presence of several references from within the LIRNE.NET community. I would have of course preferred some mention of LIRNEasia (in the same way DIRSI had been mentioned) and or a URL, but still, nice to know our work is [...]

When FM Radio meets the Mobile Phone in Pakistan

LIRNEasia’s T@BOP3 research findings on ownership levels of mobile phones versus radios at the BOP have been cited in both MobileActive.org and MediaShift Idea Lab. Seemingly surprising findings reveal that in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, more people own mobile phones than radios. Read the two articles here and here.
MediaShift Idea Lab, 19 Aug 2009:
In the [...]

Discerning teleuse from mobile transaction generated information

What LIRNEasia tries to do with its teleuse@BOP research is to understand how and why people use ICTs at the bottom of the pyramid. We do this from the demand side. That has its advantages, but disadvantages too, such as cost, shortcomings in memory, etc. Therefore, we were thrilled to see someone [...]

PCs not the best vehicles for providing IT-delivered services to rural areas

The sixth edition of the “Telecenter Debates” published by Telecenter Magazine presents a debate on whether or not the PC is the best vehical for providing IT-related services to rural areas. Rohan Samarajiva presents an article against this assertion, using evidence from the Teleuse@BOP3 study, to state that “mobiles, not PCs, have the potential to be [...]

Teleuse@BOP profile: Sayar Singh

Continuing our series of T@BOP3 user videos, below is a video interview with Sayar Singh in Rajastan, India:
Business and social life have definately improved for Sayar Singh since he bought his mobile phone in mid-2008. Earlier, he was frustrated with a fixed phone that didn’t work half the time. This wheat and flower farmer in India’s [...]

What Women Want (at the BOP)

Voice and Data carries a detailed article on LIRNEasia’s teleuse research findings, including the use of telephony and remittance patterns among migrants in the study. The article highlight the gender difference in telecom ownership and use that still exists among the South Asian countries studied. The article goes on to argue that while “entertainment has [...]

Teleuse@BOP qualitative results showcased in Times of India

As the media dissemination phase of the teleuse@BOP 3 study draws to a close, we were pleased to see the qualitative results showcased in a long article in the Times of India, perhaps one of the most prestigious among the high-quality media of India.
Rural and low-income consumer segments are attracting immense interest as they are [...]

Teleuse at the BOP and citation practices

Reading an article by Araba Sey on a small-sample study of teleuse among non-owners in Ghana in a special issue of info, edited by two colleagues in LIRNE.NET, I was surprised to see no references whatsoever to our work. We who are at edge of the global academic system had excuses, but really, after [...]

More coverage for Teleuse @ BOP3: phones outnumber radios in continental S Asia

The last burst of dissemination for the teleuse@BOP3 results is yielding good results, this time with an agency story about more BOP homes in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan having phones than radios, a story we had blogged about some time back.
Phones are catching up with TVs, and the number of phones being used by ‘bottom [...]

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