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Posts Tagged: emergingmarkets

developingworld, education, emergingmarkets, innovation, OLPC, touchscreen — No Comments
22
May 08

OLPC rides again

The OLPC horse is still being flogged, this time in a smaller format and with dual touch sensitive displays (see the pics below). What consistently confuses me about this project is the lofty goals OLPC espouses without truly connecting with the situation into which it is supposed to be introduced.

Bruce Nussbaum summed it up quite well: “The problem from the very beginning was that this is a Western educational concept encased in a beautiful little childrens’ laptop designed by Westerners (Boston-based Continuum and fuseproject’s Yves Behar) for non-Western children and non-Western cultures and educational institutions. The education ministeries in India, China and elsewhere saw OLPC as a challenge to their authority and their abilities. After all, the rise of China and India and the lifting of half a billion people out of poverty in the shortest period of time in history is based on their existing educational institutions. They argues that with US companies chasing Chinese and Indian school graduates, why change their systems to conform to some Western ideal of learning?”

Dual display ultraportable computer: interesting. Dual display ultraportable computer that bridges the digital divide and creates better learning experiences for the impoverished: very questionable.

olpc2

Link: First Look: OLPC XO-2 (laptopmag.com)

anthropology, cell, design, developing, developingworld, emergingmarkets, janchipchase, mobile, newyorktimes, nokia, phones, poverty — No Comments
13
Apr 08

Nokia Design in the NYT

Nothing new content-wise, but it’s notable that Jan Chipchase has hit the New York Times Magazine.

“This is when I voiced a careless thought about whether there might be something negative about the lightning spread of technology, whether its convenience was somehow supplanting traditional values or practices. Chipchase raised his eyebrows and laid down his spoon. He sighed, making it clear that responding to me was going to require patience. “People can think, yeah, monks with cellphones, and tsk, tsk, and what is the world coming to?” he said. “But if you wanted to take phones away from anybody in this world who has them, they’d probably say: ‘You’re going to have to fight me for it. Are you going to take my sewer and water away too?’ And maybe you can’t put communication on the same level as running water, but some people would. And I think in some contexts, it’s quite viable as a fundamental right.” He paused a beat to let this sink in, then added, with just a touch of edge, “People once believed that people in other cultures might not benefit from having books either.””

Link: Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty? (nytimes.com)

conference, design, developingworld, emergingmarkets, interview, jdmoore, mex, mobile, nokia, research, userexperience, ux, video — No Comments
24
Mar 08

Mobiles and the developing world interview

Marek Pawlowski spoke with JD Moore about mobiles and developing countries for the upcoming MEX conference. Watch the 20 minute video below.

JD Moore talks to Marek Pawlowski about mobile user experience in developing markets

Link: In-depth video interview on emerging markets (mobileuserexperience.com)

bop, breakthrough, computer, design, developingcountries, eeepc, emergingmarkets, mobile — No Comments
5
Mar 08

eeePC as a breakthrough product

Niti Bhan has boldly argued that the eeePC is a potential iPod-like breakthrough (mobile) computing product.

“This product is aimed at first time users – “the next billion customers” – the majority of whom may only have been introduced to any kind of high tech computing device via their experience with their mobile phone. We can safely assume this, there are umpteen billion mobile phones being used in the world right now, 60% of them in developing nations. From this context, the user interface that ASUS presents as “easy to use” feels familiar to them, if only that the majority of cellphones now use some kind of icon based navigation and demonstrate a similar look and feel. Compare that to the intimidation of facing a totally unfamiliar desktop environment. Even the charger that comes with the eeePC resembles that of a mobile phone.”

Link: The little eeePC that could has become the real ‘iPod’ of personal computing (nitibhan.com)

design, emergingmarkets, literacy, mobile, video — 1 Comment
24
Oct 07

Literacy and design (again!)

Jan Chipchase talks about literacy and design at the Lift conference earlier this year (for those of you reading on the RSS, follow the link for the video).

Link: LIFT Conference – Jan Chipchase (video.google.com)

developingcountries, emergingmarkets, phone, society — No Comments
1
Oct 07

Phones and the developing world

“Only a few years ago, places like Muruguru didn’t even register in the plans of handset makers and service providers. What would a Kenyan farmer want with a mobile phone? Plenty, as it turns out. To the astonishment of the industry, people living on a few dollars a day have proven avid phone users, and in many parts of the world cellular airtime has become a de facto currency. The reason is simple: A mobile phone can dramatically improve living standards by saving wasted trips, providing information about crop prices, summoning medical help, and even serving as a conduit to banking services. “The cell phone is the single most transformative technology for development,” says Columbia University economist and emerging markets expert Jeffrey Sachs.”

Link: Upwardly Mobile In Africa (businesweek.com)

design, emergingmarkets, ethnography, industrialdesign, nokia, ui, userinterface — No Comments
20
Aug 07

Nokia and emerging markets

Nokia’s design director, Antti Kujala, talks about design and emerging markets.

“In India, there’s a lot of aspiration in a purchase. It’s about looks, style, and projecting the right image. [A phone is] not just a status symbol but about people trying to acquire things to move to the next level…It has to be the right bargain in China. So you have to hit certain price points. Africa is a lot like that, too. The next big thing is going to be how to understand these global traits and translate them into functionality and usefulness while designing a product.”

Link: Nokia’s Global Design Sense (businessweek.com, via)

design, emergingmarkets, mobile, nokia, phone — 4 Comments
4
May 07

Nokia’s emerging market play

Nokia’s created a set of phones specifically for emerging markets. The site’s got case studies and some user videos.

“Many villages within emerging markets do not have access to basic telephony. Nokia helps bring mobile connectivity to these areas through the “wireless village” approach. This approach builds on entrepreneurship, avoids massive roll-out costs and investments on the part of network operators, and is affordable for low-income consumers.

“Given the chance, most people would like to own a mobile phone. However, in many emerging markets, lower income consumers face financial barriers that make it impossible to own a mobile phone. But there is one way to increase opportunities for connectivity for these important entry-level consumers – phone sharing.”

Link: Everyone has a reason (nokia.com)

cellphone, charging, cultures, emergingmarkets, environment, mobile, poverty, repair, uganda — No Comments
15
Jan 07

Phone charging practices in Uganda

“Uganda is a country coping with a severe energy crisis resulting in frequent power cuts. In addition, access to mains electricity in rural locations is limited. Given that mobile phones require power, and access to power can be unpredictable – how do people keep their mobile phones and other electrical devices charged?”

Link: Power Up: Street Charging Services in Uganda (janchipchase.com)

academic, emergingmarkets, future, microsoft, mobile, report, research, resources — 1 Comment
1
Jan 07

Research on mobile use in developing countries

Jonathon Donner has published a survey of research approaches to mobile use in developing countries. An interesting survey with loads of references. See Jonathon’s site for more of his publications.

“In particular, a few kinds of studies seem most popular: those which focus on the mobile as a tool for new forms of instrumental communication and information processing; those which examine mobile’s diffusion ‘by proxy’, comparing cross-national or crosscultural attributes; those which look at the success or failure of particular initiatives to deploy and encourage mobiles adoption, either at the level of an individual project or at the national/policy level, and; those which examine the mobile as new a mediator and enabler of older complex social interactions, mixing global and local, individual and collective in new ways.”

Link: Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature (168k PDF, jonathandonner.com)

anthropology, cultures, emergingmarkets, ethnography, mobile, sharedphones, trends, userneeds — No Comments
21
Dec 06

Nokia research on ‘shared use’ phones

Jan Chipchase and Indri Tulusan have just published an ethnographic report on shared phone use, based on research primarily carried out in Uganda.

“The research team identified 6 shared use practices: an informal service called Sente that essentially enables a mobile phone owner to function as an ATM machine; mediated communication that neatly side-steps issues of technological and textual literacy; the ever popular practice of making missed calls; the pooling of resources to buy the lowest denominations of pre-paid airtime and extend the access days for the phone that is topped up; the use of community address books to reduce errors and (supposedly) encourage phone kiosk customer loyalty; and finally Step Messaging – the delivery of text and spoken messages on foot.”

Link: Shared Phone Practices (janchipchase.com)

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