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z2006-07-14- Congo Cellphones
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Bill Seitz is a Product Manager/CTO with a track-record of bringing a business perspective to building agile product-development teams for start-ups, and is seeking a senior role in an entrepreneurial organization building disruptive Internet-driven products.
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last edited
by BillSeitz
on
Nov 25, 2008 6:42 am |
The Congo is using MobIle/Cell Phone-s in various ways. E Commerce, Economic Development, learning Reading And Writing. Iyombe said Text Messaging has been slowed by widespread illiteracy but has started taking off in recent months as people learn key words to text, such as "Call me." He said it is becoming more popular largely because a text message costs five cents, compared with 26 cents for a one-minute voice call. When his mother wants to talk to him, he said, she sends a text telling him to call. "It was a little difficult getting her to use texts, but now she's very good at it," he said, smiling at the thought... Conveniences such as LapTop-s, Inter Net access, [ATM]-s and Credit Card-s are rare or nonexistent in Congo, so Entrepren Eur-s are devising ways to use cellphones to serve the same functions... But the technology is also being used to create peace, as with a program to disarm more than 150,000 men and women who fought in Congo's gruesome war. One recent morning in downtown Kinshasa, Fiston Disundi walked up to a little white Celpay cash point booth and handed over his government [ID]. The woman in the booth entered his [ID] number into her cellphone and sent a text message to Celpay's computer database. Ten seconds later the response came back. Disundi, 27, was a former soldier who had turned in his [AK]-47 rifle in January. That meant he was entitled to a monthly $25 cash payment, which she promptly handed over to him.
Bill Seitz, fluxent at gmail dot com, Weblog