Using business to combat poverty. A powerful story about innovation and business changing the world to inspire you to take a break from your daily routine, like the Bangledeshi entrepreneur Iqbal Quadir did when he came up with the idea to bring mobile phones to poor people in his home country.
What insights to have you unique access to in your life – personal or organizational - to spur innovation?
The Idea: Issue loans to current, reliable people in these poor villages in Bangledesh who would then use mobile telephones to earn money in their village as an income generating enterprise.
The Product: GrameenPhone, which started with one phone and is now the leading telecommunications provider in Bangladesh.
The Insights:
- The lives of poor people in Bangladesh are full of inconvenience associated with isolation and a lack of information. Farmers, for example, sell their products to an unscrupulous middleman who cheats them with an unreasonably low price, when a simple telephone call would have enabled them to find out what the market prices are or what prices the competitors are offering.
- Wasted time is a huge cost for everyone and poor people should not waste time —time is at least one resource poor people have the same amount everyday as rich people do.
- The costs of software and hardware decrease as volume rises.
- The value of a product increases when greater numbers of people use it.
The Result:
Saving valuable time for poor people and empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.
Read the full story here.
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