Fighting the Technology Divide

The Grameen Foundation is another group narrowing the technology divide between the rich and the poor. Inspired by the work of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the global network aims to empower the world’s poorest people through access to information and financial services.

One Grameen project making economic and social impacts is the “Village Phone”. Based on the success of the original Grameen village phone in Bangladesh, the Grameen Foundation lends villagers money to buy village phones. The concept of a village phone is to work as a small business. The Village Phone Operators (VPOs) make money by renting out their phones to other villagers on a one-call basis. The VPOs charge their customers with reasonable rates that allow VPOs to make enough money to repay their loans while making additional profit for a better lifestyle.

The original village phone program started in Bangladesh with the help of the Grameen Bank, Bangladesh’s largest non-government organization. Focusing on introducing technology to the poor, the bank provided village women low-cost loans to set up a mobile phone exchange in areas where no or little telecommunications technology existed. Grameen phone ladies were estimated to make more than US$1000 a year, compared to the average income of US$380.

With the help of organizations like the Grameen Foundation and Negroponte’s OLPC, it is hopeful that the world’s unfair intellectual playing field will even out. The lack of modern communications technology makes a divide between the rich and the poor. Societies who have it…prosper, those who do not…stray far behind. We should not let anyone stray far behind.

(Note: Click on the Title for more about the Grameen Foundation)