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M-Powering the Poor Through Mobile Learning

Sheila Jagannathan

Imagine a world where you can pay school or health fees, open a savings account and earn interest, withdraw money from an ATM machine (no ATM card necessary), and conduct a host of other transactions just with your mobile phone. While this may seem like a vision from the future, it is already a reality in Kenya, a low-income country with a population of 40 million and a nascent telecom industry.

(World Bank News, 2010)

Introduction

According to Wayan Vota (2009), from UNESCO,

There is a mobile phone revolution in the developing world today. From the rural Maasai to the slum dwellers of Mumbai, poor people are acquiring mobile phones by themselves—without the government subsidies ...

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