Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Philanthropy by Phone


Most people are pretty reluctant to give out their cell numbers - email, IM, work number, blog address, and other identifiers usually go first. Most people might want to re-think this - especially most people living in Kenya.

Kenya's largest mobile service provider (Safaricom) announced M-PESA, an SMS feature that lets mobile customers send money to each other with text messages. You can read about it here. The Guardian (U.K.) touts this as a world first. Can you hear me now?

Not only is the transformation of money amazing, but how about a shout-out for Africa leading on innovation?

Yesterday it was charitable ATMs. Today its mobile money, or Philanthropy by Phone.

What happens tomorrow - we blink and transfer funds?


No comments: