5 Billion Cell Phones and Poverty

A report out last Thursday from the United Nations as reported by Fast Company looks at the mobile subscription rate word wide.

I haven’t read the whole article but some of the quotes that Fast Company have are pretty interesting.

There are about 25 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people in the least developed countries (LDCs), according to theInformation Economy Report 2010. That’s up from just 2 per 100 a few years ago.

From 2% to 25% in a year…..is it just me or is that some rapid growth?

But not all is rosy. The report warns that the opportunities are “unevenly distributed and not always sustainable.”

Yes…but with growth rates like that and no sigh of it stopping I think this will even out. When I was in Laos I witnessed this first hand. In some of the rural areas we hiked through whole villiges would chip in to by a cell phone. It was their connection to the villages round them and into the city to find work and a market for their goods.

I’ve been saying this for awhile now. The future is in mobile phones. The more I travel the world and see just how connected we are via cell phones the more I’m convinced this will be the true 1:1 device. Now what are we doing in our schools to help those fortunate enough to have a cell phone now prepare to work in a world where potentially everyone is connected?