In a report released in February, GSMA examined the value generated to both consumers and mobile operators by developing interoperable mobile money systems.  Entitled “The case for interoperability: Assessing the value that the interconnection of mobile money services would create for customers and operators” and co-authored by Neil Davidson and Paul Leishman, it was released through the Mobile Money for the Unbanked unit of GSMA.

The report focused on the idea that increasing the interoperability between mobile network operators (MNO) would be better for customers as it would allow greater ability to send money from a phone on one network to a phone on another network. With the understanding that a network’s value to a consumer depends on how many other people they can connect to, there is an obvious benefit to operators creating interoperability between each other. But the article finds that developing interoperability will not create the necessary value to customers in order for MNOs to profit off the investment. The authors came to this conclusion by examining it from both the consumer side and the producer side.

 

Value to Consumers

By researching the competitiveness of mobile money services, the authors found that there were only three markets in the world that could be labeled as competitive. Although 25 countries have multiple operators providing mobile money services, only three had adoption rates from multiple MNOs that would dictate a need for interoperability. They next turned their attention to discovering the specific problem that interoperability would solve. In viewing the habits of consumers in markets with mobile money, the research showed that they had figured out a workaround to transferring money between mobile networks. Since there is a low cost to purchase a SIM card from another MNO, consumers can “multi-SIM.” This means that depending on which operator the receiver is using, the sender can switch their SIM card in order to send the transfer. With the advent of dual-SIM phones (two ports for SIM cards), multi-SIMing is made easy with no need to switch out the cards manually. In Uganda, a survey from June 2010 showed that 43% of mobile money users multi-SIM. Along with the hardware workaround already available, the mobile operators have allowed unregistered accounts to send and receive money. Registered customers have the ability to send money to unregistered customers. Since all that is needed in order to collect the transfer is a secret code, an unregistered user can give the code to an agent and withdraw the cash. This is called an off-net transfer. The opposite transaction can occur as well as with an unregistered user sending a transfer to a registered customer. This is called an over-the-counter (OTC) transfer. While this does not completely kill the consumer value to interoperability, customers have already discovered and are using workarounds at no further cost to them or the mobile operators.

 

Value to MNOs

The author’s argument for why MNOs would invest into developing interoperable systems is a simple one – because it will create greater revenue. Mobile money is provided as a value-added service to create greater loyalty in the customer base as well as having them increase the amount of money they spend. But creating a system that works with other mobile operators is not free – nor cheap. The investments would include human resources and infrastructure. But the main question is how would this investment make more money, if at all? Value-added services are used for two reasons – keeping existing customers and enticing new customers. And one or both will have to pay for this service. But since it has already been shown that current customers are already willing to use a workaround to transfer between separate mobile providers, it is not clear that interconnecting systems will create greater loyalty or attract new customers.

 

Along with the unclear pain from customers about the need for interoperability, the authors made the argument that the investment in it could take away from other investments that could increase loyalty or simply pass the cost of directly onto customers. Unless a clear business reason is discovered, it seems like interoperability will not occur in the near future. But that does not mean it will never occur; just that it is too early for it now.

GBI team members recently conducted a series of workshops in both Moldova and Ukraine, to support the governments of each country in their assessment and planning to introduce Universal Service Funds, and to promote Broadband ICT development.  These countries, like much of the former Soviet Union region, have established a strong level of telecommunications infrastructure, including nearly universal mobile phone coverage, extensive fixed telephone networks, and reasonable extension of Internet access and even Broadband.  However, significant gaps remain in access to computers, Internet, and Broadband connectivity, particularly outside of urban centers.

In Moldova, the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MITC) hosted a workshop attended by about 25 government and industry officials, to address questions surrounding the current legal mandate to establish a Universal Service Fund, and the goals and options for such a Fund.  GBI experts David Townsend and Daniel Espitia presented international experience on the best approaches and priorities for creation of a USF, and the key issues that Moldova would have to address.  Given that Moldova has already made considerable progress in establishing well functioning mobile networks as well as broadband services in many parts of the country, the challenge would be to close remaining gaps in access to ICTs, with emphasis on providing all schools in the country with broadband connections as well as low-cost PCs for students.  Also, rural villages without adequate network capacity would be upgraded to broadband.  The Ministry acknowledged that new legislation would be required to authorize a USF that could fully address these objectives, and pledged to move ahead in drafting such a statute.

In Ukraine, a public workshop was held in Kiev over two days, hosted by the National Commission on State Regulation of Communication and Information (NCCIR), and attended by about 30-40 officials and private sector representatives.  There has been considerable debate in Ukraine about establishment of a USF, with strong resistance from the mobile operators, who must already pay 7.5% of their revenues into a national social security fund.  Representatives of several operators attended the workshop, along with Commissioners and other government personnel.  GBI’s David Townsend together with Parvez Iftikhar, former CEO of the Pakistan USF, presented ideas and examples of how an effective USF could work, yielding benefits both for the country and for the ICT industry itself.  A range of options were discussed for the launching of a Fund, including starting out on a pilot basis to test the concept.  Ukraine must also pass new legislation to mandate a USF, and will be working toward such a law.

GBI’s team will continue to assist both countries as they develop their USF legislation and policies.

This week, the online global education community is kicking off the first ever Open Education Week, an event initiated by the OpenCourseWare Consortium to raise awareness to the increasing number of possibilities within this field.  This growing movement is poised to change the way that education is viewed, both in the developed and developing world.  It has the potential to revolutionize the field of international education development with the increase of connectivity in regions that, until only recently, were limited to outdated and ineffective learning resources and teaching methods.

However, some of these new exciting opportunities and tools that are being developed are set amidst unfamiliar computer programming lingo, an increasing number of acronyms, and a community of open education advocates with various ideologies.  So to demystify some of these, let’s imagine for a moment that we want to create a digital classroom for distance learning, targeted to students in a remote area of a developing country.  First, we’ll need to develop our course materials and the body of information that we plan to teach:

• OER: Open Educational Resources

 

OERs are the various course and learning materials that are being made available in the digital classroom which can easily be accessed for learning, teaching and research purposes.  Covered under open licenses, these resources can be modified and updated by multiple users creating “living” resources — those that have the ability to grow and adapt with new innovations, historical events, new perspectives, etc.

OERs make up what some have termed a “universal virtual library”, and where best to start developing the resources for our digital classroom than there.  A great example of this is Wikieducator, an international online community project that facilitates collaboration between educators.

So once we’ve chosen and developed what we’ll teach, how will that content be represented and organized as a course or curriculum?  That’s where OCWs come in.

• OCW: Open CourseWare

OCWs are a type of OER.  Simply put, they are the learning materials or collection of OERs organized to serve as course content.  These, like OERs, are openly licensed and can be reused and reshaped so that they can be introduced in various educational settings.

And that’s great for us since we want input from other teachers, education professionals, and the students themselves so that, ideally, they will have the most current information taught through the most effective teaching methods.  Some OCW programs such as MIT OpenCourseWare and the Khan Academy have already taken great strides in perfecting this model.  However, OERs by themselves cannot monitor the learning process or offer accreditation to students.  We need to develop something that shows that our students have fulfilled the learning requirements and have acquired new skills.

• Badges:

Badges are the big new thing in Open Education and are still in the early stages of development.  An idea that was explored during the 2010 Mozilla Learning, Freedom and the Web Festival, the badges would certify the specific skills a student had attained and the quality of the instruction that they received.  According to a recent New York Times article, a few major companies like Microsoft are already using a badge system to certify that their employees have received technical training.

Once we’ve developed our own badge system, perfected our curriculum, and established ourselves as a credible source for quality education, it’s time to think bigger.

• MOOC: Massive Open Online Course

MOOCs are similiar to OCWs except that their pedagogical theories and student base differ.  A relatively recent innovation in online course development, MOOCs are founded on the theory of connectivism and facilitate learning through teacher led discussions and presentations and developing peer-to-peer networks between students.  The potential class size for these courses can be staggering.  Several well-known examples at Stanford have exceeded 100,000 registered students, though only a fraction of them actually completed the courses.

Even though some MOOCs and badges are being monetized, we will of course try to keep our lessons free, though there is some argument for charging small fees to motivate students to complete the course.  But many questions remain: How will these new materials with the outsourcing — or crowdsourcing — of teachers affect the local education system?  Are the skills and information being taught that of which this particular population actually need and culturally relevant?  How will it prepare students for jobs already available in this cultural context?  A lot of these new innovations still have yet to be developed to suit the needs of the developing world but, with the right amount of cultural sensitivity, research and collaboration, there are many exciting potential advantages to come.

 

 

In a complex system like the agricultural value chain, coordination of roles is key as the actors collaborate to exchange resources. Successful coordination calls for appropriate communication approaches and media for smooth flow of resources from one stage to another and from one actor to the other. The importance of communication within the value chain is becoming clear especially with the surge to develop new and innovative information and communication technologies (ICTs) for agriculture and food security.

Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI)  has been exploring the role of the new technologies along the agricultural value chain for improved resource flow. Throughout our desk research, we have found that there are several discussions, and activities going on with the use of ICTs in agriculture and food security, and others specifically on value chain development. However, little is done to bring the two issues together.

The team has identified and selected over 125 ICT solutions (apps and projects) that apply to the various actors within the agricultural value chain, specifically for this initial stage of the project and has mapped out these tools along the chain. Our database is growing (please submit any apps or ICT solutions you think we’ve missed!), and we are constantly refining data. To browse the current database, download a pdf, or submit an entry, visit our ICTs Along the Ag Value Chain page.