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This technology is saving lives in Africa
- aaronharnly 15y agoVery interesting. I'm so inured to consumer-unfriendly uses of verification codes and authenticity mechanisms -- it's nice to see one that is genuinely useful.
- itmag 15y agoThis is very interesting. Did not realize that mobile phones are so common in Africa. What kind of makes/models are typical? I would imagine that they are more low-tech than in the first world? Ideas for startups focused on this market? Highly relevant e-learning delivered via mobile? Low-tech version of Facebook? Mobile-centered food bartering auction site?
- AznHisoka 15y agoHealthcare is a good place to start. Using mobile devices to educate consumers on health needs, and to build awareness on any outbreaks of diseases where they live. Think basic needs crucial to survival, not "nice to haves" like an African Facebook.
- itmag 15y agoVery cool. I am listening. Tell me more plz :)
- itmag 15y agoAlso, might there not be legitimate uses for eg "Afribook"? -Keeping track of displaced relatives -Organizing for social change -Spreading info on best practices -Building connections that might lead to income -Strengthening communities Facebook isn't ALL Farmville and teenage gossip, y'know :)
- Dn_Ab 15y agoNot really. The rot is such that the basic human rights and needs such a platform implies are non existant. Anyways, Facebook already has very high penetration and organizing for change is met with blackberries. A tool akin to twitter but specialized to anonymity and security would be far more useful.
- rayiner 15y agoNot really. That is imbuing the situation with your political preferences re: privacy.
- wisty 15y agoAgricultural commodity prices is one - if farmers can figure out how much their stuff is worth, they won't get screwed by middlemen.
- itmag 15y agoVery cool. Do you know if something like that already exists? :)
- wisty 15y agoYou can get agricultural market data easily enough. You'd have to figure out transport costs (which could be done using a heuristic and google maps). The next step is getting them to upload the prices they get, then filtering that (as buyers may try to destroy the system). But that's for version 2.
- Dn_Ab 15y agoA quick google and I found this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/katine-chronicles-blog/2010/jan/14/mobile-phones-africa http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/katine-chronicles-blog/2010.... This comment is probably the most insightful thing on the page: http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/717541 http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/71754...
- hgh 15y agoEsoko http://www.esoko.com/ http://www.esoko.com/ is a good example. I've seen these in action in various places and I've been skeptical about how much value they actually bring to the table. Price information actually disperses pretty quickly, and for most commodities prices aren't that volatile. In the markets where wholesalers sell vegetables, you see people getting screwed by the middlemen, but basically it's because these middlemen control the marketplace, not because of lack of information.
- Dn_Ab 15y agoThere is a lot of variance in the distribution of phone capability. There is nothing scientific in my survey, just stuff I picked up. Most people have very basic phones about on par with: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1202-2573.php http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1202-2573.php There are also a lot of feature phones that might have been normal in Europe around 2003-2005. But there are also a large number of people (millions) who have smartphones. The dominant platform is the blackberry.
- itmag 15y agoSo it's mainly "dumbphones"? What kind of tech is best to reach these? WAP? Native apps?
- woodhull 15y agoSMS.
- hgh 15y agoMostly regular phones (nokia 1200s are ubiquitous) but especially in places like Kenya, smartphone penetration is beginning to increase quickly. SMS and USSD are generally most useful. WAP can be used, but penetration of WAP enabled phones is much lower. One thing that works at times when a WAP interface is required is to follow some sort of "kiosk" model where someone who has a WAP-enabled phone provides services for others without.
- woodhull 15y agoI think that Facebook beat you to this - I believe they are the top ranked site in terms of traffic for much of the continent. They have a nicely done mobile web version. In addition, they've partnered with carriers to make http://0.facebook.com http://0.facebook.com free from data charges across much of the continent, which solves the access problem. Zero is their even more lightweight version of http://m.facebook.com/ http://m.facebook.com/
- saurabhnanda 15y agoSo, how do they deal with a counterfeiter who simple copies these "unique codes"? All the counterfeiter needs is access to new OR used pill bottles. Not very hard, IMO.
- wisty 15y agoI'd assume they'd flag anything that gets checked by a consumer. It wouldn't stop everyone, but a pharmacy wouldn't need too many false alerts before customers would start going elsewhere, encouraging distributors to be more careful. Customers would need to be educated to tear up the code after use, but the pharmacy would probably handle that ("OK, go to this site, look, it's legit, now tear up that code").
- saurabhnanda 15y agoI guess, one easy way to solve this would be to flag whatever has been checked, and let the customer know someone else has checked the code before them. No one in the original distribution would feel the need to check a code, thus this would alert consumers of something fishy.
- wisty 15y agoOr distributers could use a special interface, which won't flag it as "dirty". They would use it, because it could help them track how fake goods are getting fed into their system.