A Whole New Technology Salon Experience
I am proud to announce that the Technology Salon is now officially sponsored by the United Nations Foundation’s Technology Partnership with the Vodafone Foundation. In April of 2008, I started the Technology Salon as a forum where technology and development professionals could share there opinions on emerging trends in information and communication technologies and international […]
Read MoreSpring Clean: A New Back Yard
Out with the weeds!
It took three truck-bending trips, but I just removed six thousand (6,000!) pounds of concrete from the back yard of my house. This was just the beginning of the rebirth of my lawn from post-industrial wasteland into a green oasis of beauty and serenity.
I did not start out to move so much concrete. At first, I just wanted to take out the sidewalk along my fence line, and replace it with a meandering path between a flower bed paralleling the fence, and through a yard of lush green grass. But with any household improvement, sh*t happened.
Read MoreHanalei Speaks Her First Words!
Listen to me already!
Its with great joy and surprise that I’m proud to announce that Hanalei Stockard Vota is now talking. Yes, she is speaking at 3 months old – a record for any of our families. While she’s not quite saying whole sentences, if you listen to her on this video, you can tell she’s making sense.
As her father, I’m so proud that she’s talking, its kinda hard for me to admit that I don’t always agree with what she says.
Read MoreDesigning a Micro Mobile Telco: April Technology Salon
Mobile phones are an amazing success story in the developing world, bringing transformative opportunities to many underserved communities. But they do not reach out to remote rural villages – where there is demand and purchasing power, albeit limited – and a scaleable micro mobile teclo solution could transform communications and development for the poorest of the poor.
Rural communications entrepreneurs exist
So what might be the business and technology models that would allow entrepreneurs to roll out mobile phone systems to these underserved communities? And could development organizations play a role?
Which technology would be best: GSM? WiFi? WiMax? What’s the business case: Handset sales? Subscriptions? Airtime Only? Could voice services be augmented with data? Even broadband? How might an entrepreneur serve 400 customers at $10 per month revenue or $48,000 per annum? And should aid organizations seed these businesses?
Join David Ferguson, for a lively discussion of possible micro mobile telco models and expect to hit the whiteboards with your ideas.
Time for a Spring Haircut
Whoa! How did that happen?
As a young man, I enjoyed long hair. Midway down my back in a long pony-tail, my hair signified my membership in the surfer tribe. We were the beach bums who could grow our hair long and enjoy the day, unrestricted by convention or conformity.
Fast forward a few years, and my hair was short – clipped to get my first job and kept short thereafter for ease as much as employment. In Russia, I started spiking my hair up, but by this century, it was time to leave youth and keep it short and contained.
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