February 2012 — Page 2 of 2 — LIRNEasia


The European Union was the only regional grouping taking concerted action to curb the exploitation of the customers of others by operators. But all this time, their actions had effects only within Europe. Now they’re capping roaming costs overall. This will cause European operators to actually negotiate for lower rates from those from whom they purchase roaming services. According to the waterbed theory (which has no foundation in fact, but is trotted out every time operators see some monopoly niche being attacked), this should result in higher roaming costs for the rest of us, non-Europeans.
The topline findings from the initial stage of the GSMA mWomen Research in India, Egypt, Papua New Guinea and Uganda were presented recently. It explored the Wants and Needs of BOP Women through a qualitative study. Some of the insights of  ‘mobile as a tool’ are below. Mobile use by BOP women seem to be driven by practical, utility-oriented needs such as family coordination and emergencies rather than the desire to socialize and ‘chat’. This is also seen when looking at perceived benefits in LIRNEasia’s teluse@BOP4 quantitative study.
There was a small but high profile Government Transformation Forum organized in Kovalam, Kerala, Feb 5-6, 2012. The Kerala Chief Minister and the Minister in charge of IT made appearances and the high-profile MP of the area, Dr Shashi Tharoor, delivered the keynote address and showed deep engagement. I chaired the session on international and Indian best practices and made a presentation based primarily on the experiences of designing e Sri Lanka back in 2002-03 and LIRNEasia research. My key message was that there were no best practices that could be imported to Kerala. What were best were what fit the specific circumstances.
Most people access the Internet using mobiles. Many use Facebook from mobiles. Our research in Java showed that people at the BOP were beginning to call Internet Facebook. Yet, Facebook does not know how to monetize mobile products? “We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven,” the company said in its review of the risks it faces.
The IDRC workshop at which I spent the last two days was on the subject of Universities and Intermediaries in Innovation for Inclusive Development. I’ve been thinking about inclusive development in the context of the summative paper on agricultural supply chains work we’re doing. But then I’ve been thinking about universities much, much longer. Are they the appropriate vehicles for driving innovation in emerging economies, let alone inclusive innovation? The answers would be different if the question were asked about the American model of the university?

Palau is a visionary country

Posted on February 3, 2012  /  0 Comments

Palau is a small beautiful country in the North Pacific with a population of 20956 and area of 459 square kilometers. It consists of more than 300 islands and atolls. Palau’s size did not stop it from introducing competition into its telecom sector e...

Palau is a small beautiful country in the North Pacific with a population of 20956 and area of 459 square kilometers. It consists of more than 300 islands and atolls. Palau’s size did not stop it from introducing competition into its telecom sector earlier than many of the Pacific countries.

Mobile Payments and Immobile Regulators

Posted on February 2, 2012  /  0 Comments

I am borrowing the title from a presentation by Chanuka Wattegama, from the Distance Learning Center and who is also a Research Fellow with LIRNEasia. The presentation in question was made at an industry workshop on mPayments and mBanking in South Asia in Colombo,  which I attended as well giving a presentation on the potential for mPayments in agriculture. I was actually quite impressed with the crowd that was assembled and found it quite informative. LIRNEasia hasn’t worked extensively on the topic since our 2008-20010 research cycle, when our Research Fellow, Eriwin Alampay explored mMoney applications in the Philippines as well as the overall issues with respect to regulation (Financial and Telco) of such services. We even did some rapid response work, when Sri Lanka’s Central Bank expressed  their intentions to come up with new rules regarding financial transactions using mobiles.
IDRC is starting a new initiative on inclusive innovation for development. As part of that effort a workshop on universities and intermediaries for inclusive development with participants from across several countries in South Asia plus South east Asia, and IDRC representatives from Canada and elsewhere, is being held in Negombo, 2-3 February 2012. Sujata Gamage, LIRNEasia’s Lead Scientist, is one of the lead speakers and the key liaison for this activity. Dr Shambu Prasad of the Xavier Institute of Business Management is the lead organizer. Sujata Gamage’s presentation is here.