I have previously applauded the work being done by a company called Endless who are aiming to bring low cost PCs to users in emerging markets. Now Vanu Bose, the son of the inventor of high end speakers (and very lovely noise-cancelling earphones that do a very fine job indeed) and owner of Vanu Inc is trying to get cellular coverage to areas in Africa and India that currently lack coverage. Mostly, the reason for this lack is that it’s not economical so just hasn’t been done.
But, there are rather a lot of people that are affected. In an in-depth piece on Mr Bose in MIT Technology Review the article states the GSM Association:
estimates that as much as 15 percent of the global population—1.1 billion people—live in areas with little or no coverage
Over a billion is a lot of opportunity to turn a little profit. And not just on the cellular connectivity, but on what cellular content can bring in terms of financial products and community benefits. Bose has looked at the problem from many angles and has invented a solution to deal with it: called Community Connect, it’s a ruggedised base station weighing under 10kg that can withstand the harsh conditions (human and natural) that challenged conventional operators. And it can run on solar power. And at a price point that is not prohibitive. He is marketing this cellular base station solution to existing cellular providers and hopes to prove the model in Africa and India. The MIT Technology Review is a great read on why he believes this is worth doing.
I once worked for a company where we had to send an ERP-in-a-box (literally, a lockable cabinet) to some of our African countries and I remember thinking, upon first hearing about this workaround, that it was impressive that someone had thought so laterally to solve this business problem. I am so pleased to see that kind of lateral thinking — and perseverance — have brought the world/are bringing the world the kind of solutions that organisations like Endless and Vanu have imagined.
So much of our thinking and opinions about technology is shaped by what is happening in developed economies: our concerns are mostly about things like Facebook’s role in the US elections or robots taking our jobs. That is a shame, when there stories like these that we could also be focusing on, and when what we choose to focus on will end up being our reality.