Lars Stork's Page

Bringing the benefits of mobile communications to rural villages

Nokia, together with the Grameen Foundation, have joined forces to provide rural areas with access to affordable telecommunication services, thus boosting economic development in rural communities.

The Village Phone concept is based on the pioneering work of Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. It has since been replicated in Uganda and Rwanda. The concept uses microfi… Continue

African mobile operators certainly have paved the way for further business development across industries both at corporate and SME level, the infrastructure and services provided have clearly been successful in its own way, however have also provided opportunities for new and existing businesses to develop and transform the way business is conducted in both urban and rural areas.

Some of the success stories are as follows:

Rural Distribution model

Celtel were empowering and making life better… Continue

In 2008 The African continent was seeing its strongest economic growth since the 1970s. 15 African countries entered a second decade in which they posted strong annual economic growth rate of above 5%. Despite strong economic performance, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the only region not on track for achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In 2009 recession has hit Sub-Saharan Africa, export demand is collapsing and commodity prices- in particular those of oil and base metals-under pres… Continue

Government’s responsibility

Local African governments certainly also must review and transform their regulatory framework and work in closer partnership with the industry for affordability, and low cost solutions to network extension, in particular into remote areas; both are needed to ensure the poor can access mobile phones and benefit from services; The Economic crises must be a catalyst for change – Government and mobile operators must work together in transforming their partnership for red… Continue

Transformation

Crisis management requires well thought through transformation and a fundamental re-thinking on how operators, local governments and vendors work together. Turning the effects of the global financial crisis into a positive might seem farfetched however if businesses take the actions required fast with a very structured approach and not treating the current crisis as yet another firefighting project or business as usual, ending up with fixes normally just scratching the surface. O… Continue