‘BillionPeoplePhone’ is the bridge to digital divide. Bphone is a phone for humanity and as such it helps to address the change we need to attend to. It’s a gift phone to the warring tribes of Sudan for disarmament. A gift phone to the super poor of Africa and India. A gift phone top those in the refugee camps in Chad and Darfur. A simple gift mobile for those poor enough to have no other choice. Productivity rises in deep poverty are far greater through the use of mobile communications, rather than any other sector of the world economy. Look at the 280.000 phone ladies of Bangladesh. See how it is now the dominant example of a brand new profession. Millions more people have now access to telecommunications through these ‘phon wallahs’ (phone ladies). Early agricultural age, living people suddenly join the new Millenium and make us all proud of their humanity. See how they use this new found medium and you will be surprised of the native intelligence. Grameen phone has been an instrument to help people rise out of poverty among the rural and city pro-poor but most importantly has spread telecommunications to the untouchables equalizing and leveling the playing field….. Young girls now in the bay of Benghal when asked what they want to do when they grow up….they say they want to become ‘phone lady’.
Now we have the Bphone or BillionPeoplePhone to help humanity converse in peace. Simple third world communication good enough for the first world. It’s not Apple’s Iphone but it solves real problems of humanity….and it doesn’t compete with the oligarchs so that Steve Jobs doesn’t lose any sleep over it. Pretty darn cool eh?
We need revolutionary measures to address our planet’s imbalances and cure it’s ills. Radical measures for radical times. ‘Bphone’ is that and the pre-election Disarmament in Sudan initiative is all about how we leverage technology for peace.
Led by Pano Kroko as an Open Peace program, the BillionPeoplePhone has started the process to exchange guns for mobile phones in the Southern Sudan. A good way of trading hopes to reduce the violence and allow fair elections to take place by the end of 2009.
GUNS 4 FONES exchanges in Sudan and elsewhere…. maybe next in Zimbabwe or the Kongo …
How about in the US and the UK ? Great Expectations?
Our old friend Thomas Paine would have been rather proud….
PS: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” This simple quotation from Founding Father Thomas Paine’s book ‘The Crisis’ not only describes the beginnings of the American Revolution, but also the life of Paine himself. Throughout most of his life, his writings inspired passion, but also brought him great criticism. He communicated the ideas of the Revolution to common farmers as easily as to intellectuals,preferring the formers as genuine. He stirred passions by creating prose that stirred the hearts of the fledgling early venture of a republic on the North America that was to become United States. He was a fugitive from the monarchical excesses of England’s royalty as well as the revolutionary jealots of France. He moved and fought for the cause of Liberty in America. He was a leader and had a grand vision for society: he was staunchly anti-slavery, and he was the first to advocate a world peace organization as well as social security for the poor and elderly. His Magnus Opus was the book ‘Age of Reason’ and it is this text that drives spiritual Atheism to this day. Himself was a rather spiritual and idealistic person as described by his close friend Ben Franklin. Unfortunately his early prescient yet radical views on religion would destroy his successes with the puritan Americans and by the end of his life, he was forgotten if not abandoned by friends and foes alike. He died alone and only a handful of people attended his funeral. Yet his relevance today is monumental. My Brother in arms….
