24/Nov/08 TED.com

Today for my self study I watched lecture on TED.com which is relevant to my subject 'business'. The lecturer was from Bangladesh and an advocate of humanitarian tool business. You can see the meaning of humanitarian tool business from my notes about the lecture below.

As you probably know, Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries. In the countries one five-hundredth has a mobile phone. One day when the lecturer was a child, he needed to get a medicine from a doctor for his mother without calling the doctor beforehand. Arriving at the hospital, there was not anyone and he waited for the doctor all the afternoon but the doctor did not appear. With this example, the lecturer wanted to explain about productivity. The more they have mobile phones, the less they tend to waste of time like that case above.

Well, why do not they have enough mobile phones?
That is because lack of the power to buy them in poor countries. The reason why they lack of the power is that they do not have infrastructures for mobile phones; no credit checks, a few bank branches to collect bills, a few contact points for customer services.

On the other hand, however, the impact of installing mobile phone system in less GNP countries is huger than in more GNP countries. Therefore it is seen by the lecturer as a valuable investment to spread mobile phone over the countries.