Feed items

Mobile Money: A Recap posted on April 2, 2010 - 11:31pm
I’m spending today at the Macroeconomics of Mobile Money conference at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI). Liveblogging. Please excuse misrepresentation, misinterpretation, typos and general stupidity. James Alleman is giving closing comments. His takeaways: There is a class that’s underserved by formal banking, and there are a lot of people who are ready to use mobile banking services in the developing world. The success of existing services like M-Pesa and Menekse Gencer is impressive and lays a good foundation for future efforts. It appears as though mobile banking efforts will need a formal banking partner to be truly successful. We still don’t have a good idea of what kinds of regulatory systems are going to be required. Anonymity is a major question: balancing privacy with criminal threats. Right now, security is an afterthought. This is not good. There are too many “standards” right now.
Mobile Money: Developing Countries posted on April 2, 2010 - 11:24pm
I’m spending today at the Macroeconomics of Mobile Money conference at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI). I’ve been eagerly awaiting the final session on mobile money for developing countries, which Raul Katz is moderating. Liveblogging. Please excuse misrepresentation, misinterpretation, typos and general stupidity. Katz kicks things off by admitting that “we’ve been dancing around the issue of developing countries” for much of the day. He hopes this panel will give us a chance to dig in to the implications of mobile technologies for economic growth in the developing world. Mobile Money and Economic Development Dan Jensen of iWorld Services has been in the business since 1974. iWorld deploys Internet-based, open source platforms, products and services in the developing world, focusing largely on Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and targeting small businesses and low-income/rural areas. Their goal is to foster social entrepreneurship in these countries.
Mobile Money: Is the mobile secure? posted on April 2, 2010 - 10:14pm
I’m spending today at the Macroeconomics of Mobile Money conference at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI). Columbia University professor Steve Bellovin is moderating the first afternoon session, on security in mobile banking. (Side note: I blogged about Bellovin’s opposition to UN efforts to limit online anonymity for my first-ever post on The Morningside Post.) Liveblogging. Please excuse misrepresentation, misinterpretation, typos and general stupidity. Overview of Mobile Banking Threats Kevin Streff of Dakota State University immediately wins me over by bragging about South Dakota’s Corn Palace. Not at all ashamed to admit I’ve been there. Streff begins by talking about the top technology concerns for community banks, including managing risks, protecting data, and detecting fraud.
Mobile Money: Legal and Regulatory Issues posted on April 2, 2010 - 7:37pm
I’m spending today at the Macroeconomics of Mobile Money conference at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI). I wasn’t able to come to the first session on the macroeconomic impacts of mobile money, but the 11:30 session is on the legal and regulatory issues surrounding the rise of mobile banking and mobile payments. Liveblogging. Please excuse misrepresentation, misinterpretation, typos and general stupidity. Overview of Regulatory Issue of M-payments The lawyers are going to say there’s nothing new, and the regulators are going to say, “yes there is.” — Richard Field, moderator Benjamin Geva opens the panel by explaining the difference between access devices (which aid in the transfer of funds from one bank accounts to another) and stored-value products (where you load the value onto a prepaid card or something similar). The problem with mobile banking is that mobile phones act as both kinds of devices.
just breathe. posted on March 27, 2010 - 8:39pm
I’m nearing the end of grad school and starting to get a bit nervous about finding a job. Google spreadsheets full of companies, NGOs and university research institutes — some hiring, more not — are constantly open in Firefox, Idealist is constantly being refreshed, networks are being tapped. There is an abundance of stress. I was cleaning out a drawer yesterday and ran across a stack of index cards held together with a yellow binder clip. In the statistics class I help teach at SIPA, I ask my students to write down an interesting fact about themselves on the first day of class.
Bissell, debunked. posted on March 22, 2010 - 7:44pm
I used to have this thing about this author. To wit: I love Tom Bissell. And also: Bissell is like the mysterious older brother of your best friend — the one who graduated with a liberal arts degree and then joined the Peace Corps. He came back with giardia and uncut hair and a tan that was half sun and half dirt, carrying a thick, worn, dusty journal full of (articulate, beautiful, introspective) insights based on late nights listening to the tales of old men’s lives and conversations about everything from lemons to lynchings with street vendors and taxi drivers and other people whose stories never get told. Three years and travel to a handful of new countries have taught me that these mysterious older brothers come back with a lot more than intestinal parasites and messy hair, including, apparently, vicious coke habits and Grand Theft Auto addictions: Soon I was sleeping in my clothes. Soon my hair was stiff and fragrantly unclean.
Ugandan GLBT activist in NY next week posted on March 18, 2010 - 5:34am
Frank Mugisha, head of Ugandan GLBT activist group Sexual Minorities Uganda, is speaking in New York City March 22 (details here). Mugisha will be joined by the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, an Episcopalian Priest from Zambia and author of Globalizing the Culture Wars, a report on how Christian evangelicals in the US have influenced attitudes toward sexual minorities in Africa. For more information on what Ugandan sexual minorities face, check out my posts on the issue or the blog GayUganda. For more about Rev. Kaoma, read this review of Globalizing the Culture Wars by Ethan Zuckerman.
GV Uganda: Students riot, Kampala burns posted on March 17, 2010 - 8:14pm
Two separate tragedies struck Kampala, the capital of Uganda, on Tuesday: students at Makerere University rioted after the shooting death of two of their peers. And the Kasubi Tombs, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the burial location of the king of one of Uganda’s largest ethnic groups, burned to the ground. Read the full post at Global Voices »
GV Transparency: Is ICT all it’s cracked up to be? posted on March 5, 2010 - 12:45am
As part of the Global Voices Technology for Transparency Network, my fellow researchers and I will be blogging about ICT all over the world. My first post, on a failed ICT for governance project in Sudan and the implications for tech efforts during the upcoming elections, went up today: In a December 2009 Global Voices article titled “ICT4D: Past mistakes, future wisdom,” Aparna Ray points out that many technology for development projects have “started with a bang and later died with a whimper.” According to a recent article in the Financial Times, such is the fate of a multimillion dollar World Bank plan to supply Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, with computers and Internet access. Read the full article » We’re hoping to get a discussion going over at Global Voices that not only highlights the tremendous power of the Internet and other digital tools, but also explores the challenges and difficulties of using these tools for political development and civic engagement.
GV Uganda: Hundreds feared dead in landslide posted on March 4, 2010 - 4:57am
A mudslide in eastern Uganda Monday evening left at least 80 people dead and over 300 missing. The mudslide, triggered by a day of heavy rain, has buried three villages in Bududa district and displaced more than 2000 people from their homes. As of Wednesday morning, the search continues for survivors. Read the full post at Global Voices Online »