With apologies to Victorinox, the mobile telephone is fast becoming the Swiss Army knife of technology, a cheap, versatile device that just about anybody can use for what seems like an infinite number of uses.
In doing so, cellphones are dramatically altering society. Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project, has called them "the single most transformative technology for development."
It has long been recognized that the relationship between communication technology is changing society itself , famously allowing young people in ultraconservative communities like Saudi Arabia to make dates to meet and so on. But cellphones are moving far beyond that, according to a new research paper by Shin Hye-Jeong, a research fellow with Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul.
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Mobile technologies have enabled small farmers to communicate with merchants and distributors on prices and marketability for their products, increasing the efficiency of the supply chain. They are also leading to the rise of new businesses, while expanding job creation thanks to enhanced access to job information, the SERI paper notes. “Forty-one percent of women in developing countries surveyed say that the phone has increased their income and professional opportunities. Palestine-based Souktel has matched young people with jobs through a simple SMS (text messaging) platform, reducing college graduates' job-seeking time from an average of 12 weeks to less than one week, while increasing their salary by up to 50 percent.” Full story...
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In doing so, cellphones are dramatically altering society. Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project, has called them "the single most transformative technology for development."
It has long been recognized that the relationship between communication technology is changing society itself , famously allowing young people in ultraconservative communities like Saudi Arabia to make dates to meet and so on. But cellphones are moving far beyond that, according to a new research paper by Shin Hye-Jeong, a research fellow with Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul.
(...)
Mobile technologies have enabled small farmers to communicate with merchants and distributors on prices and marketability for their products, increasing the efficiency of the supply chain. They are also leading to the rise of new businesses, while expanding job creation thanks to enhanced access to job information, the SERI paper notes. “Forty-one percent of women in developing countries surveyed say that the phone has increased their income and professional opportunities. Palestine-based Souktel has matched young people with jobs through a simple SMS (text messaging) platform, reducing college graduates' job-seeking time from an average of 12 weeks to less than one week, while increasing their salary by up to 50 percent.” Full story...
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