How Computers Can Save The World

I am currently reading Creating a World WIthout Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

In it, among other things, he suggests that the computer revolution may contain the seeds of a solution to solving world poverty.

The reason that Yunus' theories on this matter interest me is that I am an independent entrepreneur, whose business is conducted (a) solely by computer and (b) in a manner highly dependent on the Internet.

Yunus contends that the key to helping the world's poor is capitalism and entrepreneurship.

What he means by this, however, is different from what we sometimes hear when we hear the word "capitalism."

Capitalism, unfortunately, has come to mean the existence of large companies that grow, and in turn create jobs.

While this process is indeed important, and has been instrumental in lifting millions out of poverty, capitalism is also something else... Capitalism is the effort of a small outfit to make money by selling a good or service. In other words, if you sell any kind of service, or charge money for any kind of product, then you are a capitalist.

Yunus contends that the poor could do this. All that is lacking is the infrastructure and education to do so.

This interests me because I live in a fairly remote part of North America, yet I do my business from here without any problem... because of the Internet. And this, potentially, could also be the situation of millions of people in the "non-developed" world.

Muhammad Yunus has established a number of "social businesses" (organizations run exactly like conventional businesses, except that 100 percent of the profits are reinvested back into that business, and whose aim is philanthropy) under the umbrella name of "Grameen."

One of these is called Grameen Phone.

Grameen Phone has partnered with cell phone infrastructure companies to enable huge numbers of rural villages in the less-developed world to have access to at least one cell phone.

These phones are owned or leased by an individual, who then charges rent for use of that phone to others.

In this way, a key aspect of infrastructure, that of a communications network, has been set up in many places without landlines, via the use of "social entrepreneurship" exercises such as this.

This, potentially, opens the door to other people using these networks to trade, to do business, to find customers for their own small businesses, via the telephone.

Naturally, however, education is a key factor in this process. Nevertheless, the learning curve has been shown to be quite quickly overcome by many of these poor people... the "education" required to operate a business of this type has been shown to be powered by the people's motivation and enthusiasm.

As already mentioned, what is happening with Grameen Phone is fascinating to me.

The use of wireless technology as borne on the back of cellphone technology is key to modern success in entrepreneurship, because without communications you cannot find large markets.

The spread of cellphone technology levels the playing field -- now the poor can access customers the world over.

More importantly, with gadgets such as the iPhone, the Internet can be delivered to these phones.

Once the technology comes online to translate what is on the Internet into a local language, and, more crucially, a spoken version of that language, the potential for the poor to step out of the poverty trap is startingly real.

This, as I say, fascinates me, because it is these same processes that have allowed me to step, not out of poverty, but out of dependence on a job offered by someone else.

...And if there is one thing that people are short of in many of these regions, it is adequately-paying jobs.