Do you use digital currency? If you use a credit card, PayPal, or use a mobile money app to sell or buy things, then the answer is yes! There is a lot of innovation happening in the digital currency field right now and it is especially important for the global development sector. While it will be easier for more advanced financial institutions to adopt digital currency, the benefits of its adopting extend far beyond that sector.

Here is why the digital currency innovation matters to global development:

Puts power back in the hands of the people

Today, many people in developing countries rely on remittances from family members abroad. But wire transfers charge a lot in transaction fees (up to 6 – 10% for $200). Digital currency can facilitate a faster and cheaper bank transfer, removing the middlemen. You can see a difference even in domestic money transfers; In 2012, when the Afghanistan national police switched to a mobile payment service, M-Paisa, the employees thought that they had received a 30% raise. When they received their salaries in cash, 30% used to be “taken off the top” so, mobile money left no room for corruption and delivered their complete salaries.
For small businesses competing in the global market, digital currencies even the playing field between currency conversion rates, commission fees, and transfer limitations that come into play with traditional monetary systems.

Makes money safer

In the developing world, monetary transactions are usually in cash, which means money is also stored in cash. Holding your savings or spending money in cash can put you at risk for robbery risking the welfare of you and your family. Digital currency can take that worry away since you are not holding the cash physically. And with a digital currency like bitcoin, a unique digital signature protects every exchange so that there is no risk of fraud, chargebacks, or identity theft.

We have already seen the benefits of using digital currencies

Digital currencies are not necessarily new. M-Pesa, a mobile money service is a huge success in Kenya, with 83% of the population currently using the service. Bitcoins made their entry in the field recently, however, some organizations are already exploring its potential for social good. Organizations like BitGive are already launching initiatives to leverage bitcoin’s technology to benefit charitable organizations around the world. MIT’s Media lab launched the Digital Currency Initiative to bring together global experts in areas ranging from cryptography, to economics, to privacy, to distributed systems, to address key issues that digital currencies like bitcoin are poised to make on people’s lives in the next decade.

There are many more examples of how digital currencies are impacting global development, so we will be discussing them with some of the organizations leading this effort in our TechTalk tomorrow. Register now and join the conversation here.

It’s been two years since Chrissy Martin wrote a post on her thoughts on mobile money for development for TechChange’s Mobiles for International Development online course. As Chrissy has focused on mobile money issues since then, so much of it still rings true including the challenges of preventing fraud and best practices for working with telecoms.

In a recent Forbes article, we learned that more than two thirds of Kenyan adults use M-Pesa (a mobile digital currency), accounting for more than 25% of Kenya’s GNP. The ubiquitous use of mobile phones and the growing market for increasingly affordable smartphones will only make mobile money more popular in the developing world. According to ITWeb Africa, mobile money users now outnumber adults with bank accounts in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

While M-Pesa is the most well-known mobile-based financial transfer service, there are more players in the field such as Zoona, an African social enterprise that provides mobile payments and working capital financing to micro & small enterprises. Chrissy works as the Global Partnership Manager at Zoona and we can’t wait to hear more about the cool things that Zoona is doing in Africa.

Get a sneak peek of what to expect from Chrissy’s session on mobile money and Zoona with this video here:

Interested in mobile money and other ways mobile phones are improving lives? Join our upcoming online course on Mobiles for International Development.

About TC105 Guest Speaker, Chrissy Martin

Chrissy Martin headshot Zoona

Chrissy Martin is a product manager with several years of experience implementing digital financial solutions in emerging markets.  With operational knowledge across multiple sectors, she effectively bridges the gap between the private sector and the development industry.  Presently, she serves as the Global Partnership Manager for Zoona, an African social enterprise passionately committed to helping small businesses grow. Before Zoona, she was at the development organization MEDA, expanding rural access to financial services in countries including Zambia, Uganda, and Nicaragua. Previously, Chrissy was based in Haiti, working as the Product Manager for Mobile Financial Services at Digicel.  Chrissy holds degrees from The Fletcher School and the University of Virginia.

 Featured image photo credit: Zoona Facebook page

Last week, the Mobile World Congress 2014 welcomed the most influential mobile carriers across the world that are shaping the future of mobile, especially for populations who are new mobile consumers. Looking back at some of the news coming from the mobile phone industry’s  largest annual event, we examine the key takeaways from this year’s MWC that will impact not just emerging markets, but also developing countries.

1. Facebook wants to bring low-cost or free internet access to Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  According to the New York Times, “For Facebook, poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America represent the biggest opportunity to reach new customers, though it must figure out how to get people there online at a low cost.”

Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp is linked to the social media company’s larger Internet.org initiative to partner with tech companies to have more people across the world, especially in developing countries, to be able to access the internet with a smartphone. Facebook has announced that it wants to partner with five more companies across emerging markets in 2014 to continue this Internet.org initiative.

2. Mozilla’s $25 smartphone will make mobile internet access more affordable. The Mozilla Foundation has joined forces with a Chinese chipmaker, Spreadtrum Communications, to introduce a mobile device that will be sold for only $25 later in 2014. By offering this smartphone at a price point significantly lower than other major players in the smartphone market, Mozilla is aiming to cut into the smartphone dominance of Android and Apple iOS, and looking to take smartphone market share in Latin America and Africa.

3. Mobile money is growing rapidly. In a report launched this week at the Mobile World Congress, GSMA announced that mobile money reached 61 million consumers in 2013. According to the report, “At the end of 2013, nine markets, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, already had more mobile money accounts than bank accounts, compared to just four markets last year.” Mobile money is resulting in more financial inclusion across the developing world. Looking for an intro to mobile money? Check out our free self-paced online course on mobile money here.

4. mHealth innovations for developing nations will continue to be mostly SMS-focused in the short-term.  Samsung demonstrated it is moving deeper into the mHealth and wearable technology industries with last week’s launches of the Galaxy S5, which can monitor heart rate, and the Gear Fit. As we’ve seen with our earlier post with Text to Change on using mobiles for social change in developing countries, mHealth still has a long way to go in developing countries with simple SMS campaigns. Until these cheaper smartphones become more accessible to more consumers along with reliable internet connectivity as Facebook and Mozilla at MWC 2014 may promise, mHealth in developing countries will continue to focus more on text messaging.

3G Doctor shared this helpful mHealth Guide to the MWC2014. If anyone was able to attend any of these events, please share with us any insights you learned!

 

Interested in Mobiles for International Development and mHealth? Join our upcoming mHealth online course, which runs March 31 – April 25, 2014.

 

Infographic global mobile subscription vs. population 2014Estimates from the mHealth Alliance, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Jana Mobile Inc. show that by 2014, the number of mobile subscriptions worldwide will exceed the global population. Between 2000 and 2014, subscriptions are estimated to increase from 750 million to over 7 billion (approximately a 933% increase).

What do these statistics mean for the world, especially in developing countries? What implications does mobile subscription expansion have for public health, banking, education, and agriculture? Why do mobiles matter for international development? What emerging mobile technology is having the greatest impact?

Learn more about the global impact of mobile technology with our TC105: Mobiles for International Development course, which runs September 8 – October 3, 2014.

 

On February 26, USAID received the “Best Government Policy for Mobile Development” award at GSMA’s Mobile World Congress 2013. And while the Mobile Solutions team was receiving an award in Barcelona, TechChange and the MS team were also receiving over 1,500 mobile poll responses from recipients in DRC taking part in an online exercise designed by 173 USAID staff and implementing partners in 21 countries. The way this was possible is through harnessing the same potential for public-private partnerships used for external implementation and applying it to internal education and collaboration at USAID.


Fig. 1: MapBox visualization of GeoPoll responses.

The exercise was part of a 4-week online course in Mobile Data Solutions designed to provide a highly interactive training session for USAID mission staff and its implementing partners to share best practices, engage with prominent technologists, and get their hands on the latest tool. Rather than simply simulating mobile data tools, USAID staff ran a live exercise in DRC where they came up with 10 questions, target regions, and desired audience. The intent was to not teach a tool-centric approach, but instead begin with a tech-enabled approach to project design and implementation, with an understanding of mobile data for analysis, visualization, and sharing.


Fig. 2: Student locations for TC311 class.

This would have been a formidable exercise for any organization, but fortunately we augmented USAID’s development capacity with the abilities of three organizations. TechChange provided the online learning space, facilitation, and interactive discussions. GeoPoll ran the survey itself using their custom mobile polling tool. And MapBox provided the analysis and visualization needed to turn massive data into a simple and attractive interface. (Want to check out the data for yourself? Check out the raw data Google Spreadsheet from GeoPoll!)

But while the creation of an interactive online workshop for small-group interaction requires barriers to scale, the content is under no such restrictions. One of the videos from our previous course on Accelerating Mobile Money provided an animated history of M-PESA, the successful mobile money transfer program in Kenya, which allows everything mobile phone users to pay for everything from school fees to utility bills and is proving transformative in cases such as Haiti.


Fig. 3: M-Pesa animation used for TC311 and USAID Video of the Week

But there’s still plenty of work to do. As mobile phones continue their spread to ubiquity, the challenges for applying their potential to development will only increase, along with the continuing possibilities as the technology continues to improve. However, in the short term, we’re focused on increasing mobile access, which is the topic of our next course. If you work at USAID or with an implementing partner, we hope that you’ll consider joining us and lending your voice to this process.

Are you interested in learning with TechChange? Check out our next class: Digital Organizing and Open Government. Class starts April 8, 2013. Apply Now.

How can USAID use mobile technologies to more effectively collect, analyze and share data?  These are the central questions we will be addressing as part of a new course TechChange has developed in partnership with the Mobile Solutions team at USAID and QED.

USAID, together with its partners, has the opportunity to increase efficiency, improve the quality of the information its uses, and better meet USAID goals related to its Forward Reforms, Evaluation Policy, and Open Data Initiative by utilizing mobile technologies to collect and disseminate data about people, projects, and programs. This course will help USAID Missions and implementing partners understand how to do just that.

Building off of the success of our 8-week online certificate course this fall on Accelerating Mobile Money, TC311 Mobile Data Solutions will be a four week online course (February 1-March 1, 2013) designed to build the necessary technical capacity to deploy mobile data collection strategies by bringing together Mission staff and implementing partners. The four weeks are structured as follows to provide a comprehensive overview of mobile devices in data collection.

Week 1: Introduction to mobile data solutions

  • What is mobile data? What are the benefits and challenges associated with collecting data wirelessly?

Week 2: Project design

  • Designing projects and preparing concept notes, scopes of work, other documents to include mobile technologies.

Week 3: Implementation

  • Study design and programming, training, field operations, data management

Week 4: Analysis, visualization and sharing

  • Utilizing data for decision-making, sharing with partners

The course will go beyond explaining the benefits of this approach. Participants will learn the questions to ask in order to assess projects (Are mobile technologies appropriate?); design them to achieve the maximum benefits possible (How should interventions be designed to take advantage of these technologies?), implement them (What device should we use? How do we train staff? What resources do we need in the field? At the Mission?), and report and share the data (How do we create visuals that can inform decision making? How do we share the results with beneficiaries and partners in-country?).

Featured tools, organizations and projects include: Episurveyor/Magpi, FormhubSouktel, EMIT, uReport, TexttoChange, RapidSMS, GeoPoll, iFormbuilder, PoiMapper, Catholic Relief Services, DAI, NASA, OpenDataKit at UW, SweetLab, JSI, ICF International, Tangerine at RTI, Futures Group. The course will be delivered on TechChange‘s custom learning platform and will include a mixture of presentations by experts, tool demonstrations, selected readings, and activities including designing and analysing a survey using mobile software.

This closed course is intended specifically for USAID and its implementing partners. But if are you interested in learning with TechChange and the topic of mobile data, Check out our upcoming course on Mobile Phones for International Development. Class starts on March 4, 2013. Apply now!

The end of the year is now upon us. We just wanted to thank you from the bottom of our hearts and the top of our DC nerd attic for making 2012 our best one yet. Specifically, thanks to your course feedback, content contributions, happy hour attendance, and tuition dollars, we’ve trained over 1,400 participants in 70 countries in how to better use technology for social change.

New Online Courses:
We have expanded on our original set of courses (Emergency Management, Digital Organizing, and Mobiles for International Development) into exciting new spaces. A few courses we’d like to highlight:

  • (TC309) Mobile Phones and Public Health: Our largest open enrollment course so far, we were joined by over 100 students in 25 countries. Developed in partnership with the UN Foundation’s mHealth Alliance, we also piloted our new in-course tool simulator for D-Tree!
  • USAID Courses on Mobile Money: Through a custom course for 80 USAID mission staff in 7 countries, we’re helping build development capacity in mobile phones. Next up? Turning this course into a self-paced interactive module to scale the program.
  • TOL Journalist Training for “Reporting on Education” in E. Europe: Developed in partnership with Transitions Online (TOL), BBC, and The Guardian, we shared our platform with TOL to train 20 journalists over a 2-week period. This was our first course ever with non-TechChange content and external facilitators!
  • (TC201) Ushahidi: Frameworks for Effective Platform Management: Expanding on our “Emergency Management” course, we developed this course in partnership with Ushahidi to be a scalable complement to the Universities 4 Ushahidi program (U4U).
  • (TC108) Technology, Innovation, and Social Entrepreneurship: Developed in partnership with the Amani Institute, we wanted to not just teach content, but develop more social entrepreneurs to keep pushing the field forward.

Online-Enabled Public Events:
One of our initiatives this year has been to assist our partners in reaching a larger online audience and to start thinking of all public events as online-first. Events include:

  • International Conference of Crisis Mappers at the World Bank: We worked together with Crisis Mappers to produce the first livestreaming of ICCM, which led to an additional 950 unique viewers from all over the world!
  • Connecting Grassroots to Government at the Wilson Center: Building on our work for empowering Volunteer Technical Communities (VTCs), we took live questions from the online audience during this event. This was one of multiple events at the Wilson Center, which is leading the way in online-enabled events.
  • Expert Interviews at the mHealth Summit: Since the webcast was already provided, we focused on capturing expert knowledge from the attendees and partners for the mHealth Alliance. Most fun part? Getting pictures of attendees holding their cell phones to show their personal connection with the device.

Site Upgrades and Added Features:
In addition to a few other handy features, we’ve made a few big technical upgrades to our site in the hopes of improving user experience.

  • Launched a new, responsive TechChange.org! We much of 2011 promoting mobile-first design, so it was a relief to build a fully responsive site in 2012. Try re-sizing it in your browser!
  • Animating our content voiceovers. We’ve always been big fans of RSA Animate and iheed who produce educational video content, so we tried giving it a go ourselves. What do you think? We’re hoping to do plenty more in 2013.
  • Video-for-everyone course design. We switched from Ustream to OpenTok in 2012 to try to not just talk at our classes, but have discussions with you. It’s been a bumpy ride, but we’re working at optimizing for every browser and bandwidth.

Field Training and Workshops:
Tech training cannot be done by Internet alone. Here’s a few cases where we rolled up our sleeves and got to teaching the old fashioned way.

Finally, a particular highlight of the past year was the nice story run about us in The Economist. Read the article: Geeks for Good.

We hope to see you online, in person, or in class next year!

Warm regards,

The TechChange Team

This week will mark the launch of our new eight-week online certificate course on Mobile Money in partnership with the Mobile Solutions team at USAID and The QED Group. Today, we open our doors to over 70 staff from USAID and implementing partners in 10 countries to connect them with leading experts in the mobile money space and share best practices. Building on the materials in our TC105 Mobiles for International Development course, we will focus more specifically on how to implement and operationalize mobile money programs designed for scale.

USAID is the first bilateral donor to establish a dedicated Mobile Solutions team to help lever the power and reach of mobile technology to accelerate development outcomes. It is also an emerging leader in mobile money. Already, USAID’s work in Haiti led to more than 5 million mobile money transactions and a doubling of financial access points. In Afghanistan, USAID worked with the Central Bank to reduce regulatory barriers to entry for mobile network operators to establish mobile money products. And it is working to transfer large payment flows from cash to mobile money–this summer, for example, 110,000 households will have the chance to pay their electricity bills via mobile money. This online course will help inform this work and future programs, as USAID intends to expand its mobile money work to countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Malawi and a host of others.

Participants will explore at issues of regulation and interoperability, as well as strategies for working effectively with MNOs, banks and governments. We’ll consider case studies from countries like Pakistan, Philippines, Haiti, Uganda, Kenya and hear from guest experts such as David Porteous of Bankable Frontiers, Kabir Kumar of CGAP, Nadeem Hussain of Tameer Bank, Tomasz Smilowicz of Citigroup, Jordan Weinstock of Open Revolution, Chrissy Martin of MEDA, and more. Self-paced content including animated and interactive overview videos will complement live discussions.

According to Priya Jaisingani, Director of the Mobile Solutions team at USAID, this type of online facilitated course “will go a long way to ensure USAID’s mobile money work is informed by the best thinking in the field.”

TechChange president Nick Martin said of the partnership: “We often find that the biggest barrier to using mobile phones for international development is bridging the rift between development projects and technologists. We’re hoping this class can do exactly that through sharing best practices and connecting with leading experts.”

If you’re interested in mobile money and other possibilities for mobile phones for your projects, TechChange will also be offering an open-enrollment course TC105: Mobiles for International Development on September 24th.

Image link from USAID IDEA: http://idea.usaid.gov/tags/haiti

Today’s Tech@State event produced some great insights into current uses and future applications for mobile money. The presenters did a wonderful job detailing the different models currently being used to engage the billions who are unbanked but have access to a mobile device. Some key take-aways from the day were (1) the need to focus on user inputs, (2) the importance of building a network of physical agents, (3) and possibilities for other services that are enabled once a successful mobile money system is established.​

(more…)