I just wanted to put up a small little post based on the recent Ted Talks video I watched. The video's central theme was: giving aid to poor third world countries doesn't help fight poverty because the money gets in the wrong hands and corruption stops the money from getting to the poor. Additionally, aid empowers authorities and marginalizes minorities! One way to help curb this is by changing the way we think about fighting poverty. Iqbal Quadir, suggests that by giving cell phones to poor people in third world countries will enable them to connect with villages around them and the outside world allowing them to advance faster than they have in the past. Furthermore, cell phones will develop economic development of the people, for the people and by the people, rather than always having government, by the government and for the government. It is a common misperception that these people are poor because they lack skills for a job. The reality is third world citizens are very eager to learn and Iqbal claims third world citizens can learn how to use a phone in one day! Furthermore, Iqbal also claims the phone is a massive production tool because the phone allows people to have specialization in their businesses. It leads to specialization because it provides connectivity between businesses!! In turn, the video has a much different view on how to fight poverty, which fights the traditional way of simply throwing money at the problem.
Link of the video: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/iqbal_quadir_says_mobiles_fight_poverty.html
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