http://www.sevenfon.com
sevenfon.googlepages.com

I also came across this blog, may be interesting:
http://web.mit.edu/eprom/whyafrica.html

Regards,
Sunil
Mango Technologies
http://www.mangotechno.com

If you are interested I’ve tried to sum it here : http://tmenguy.free.fr/TechBlog/?p=161

Anyway I was not aware of mangotechno … interesting!
I’m working at Open-Plug … perhaps you know us already : we do something really similar to you, perhaps some synergies may be found?

Regards
Thomas

I’m from India and feel the same about need for ultra low cost device as more then half the population in this region is below the average national income and they need device primarily for communication but it wold be interesting if some one can enable these device so it can help people to earn more. How? May be innovative informative/interactive application for farmers, health care applications on mass market devices in localized language (where mass is more comfortable and enjoy sharing their thoughts).

You need people who can think like people think in emerging countries and create software in the similar fashion for their local need rather dumping phones from developed countries in the name of low cost.

Innovation is the need of hour. It’s interesting that people want more services on their phone but without spending extra money, some how we’ll have to enable them.

Sunil
http://www.mangotechno.com

Of course I’ll try to write only folowing a “mobile industry” angle: I think Kenya may be a really good case study for the mobile industry in emerging countries…

Your material was very interesting, and while I really enjoyed the related facts, I’m, as an european, less in line with the strong neoliberal (or neocapitalism) views expressed here … but is is why the net is so great no ?

I really hope I’ll find the time to write it down cause I’ve learnt a lot of things thanks to you (and I have something with Kenya: one of my uncles was a Flying Doctor with “mama daktari”, and he told us so many stories…)

Regards
Thomas

Please let me know if you do write something on Kenya. I would really be interested in your take on things with your background advantage.

Best,
June

Thanks again for this great material! $40 on their phones a month wow! Plus your study and the great BBC coverage…hum I think I’ll definitively try to write something about Kenya…

Thanks again,
Thomas

Let me look around further on the information you gave me. I am encouraged by your product and hope to continue discussing this further.

Please see some of the reasons why i am excited about the cell phone industry in my country. Here is a study i authored on te Cell phone revolution in Kenya and other media mentions of the same. Text messaging still remains the main mode of communicating in these markets as people easily spend over $40 on their phones a month, since the markets tend to have one or 2 cell phone service providers and competition has not lowered prices yet. So texting is what people can afford. Actually developing a dictionary for the short hand that people have developed for txting would be most useful so more can be said in fewer txt messages, since the number of characters per text are limited and you are charged per txt.

Thanks again!

http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/Cell_phone_Rev_in_Kenya.pdf –

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6241603.stm

http://www.globalenvision.org/learn/22/805/

Thanks a lot for the comment.

Yes “small” languages are difficult to address in the current form of internationalization support, I’ll try to answer your points, on the basis that for the African languages I know, the rendering of the text is easy and the alphabet used is a latin one…if it is not the case please correct me.

1. Develop software with my language dictionary and sell it to the service provider?

To do that a first “simple” (hum the right word is “less complicated” ) step to try it out is to write a MIDP application to send and recieve messages tuned for your language: you will learn a lot and “easily” deploy it

2. Develop the software and have a way for people in my country to load the whole dictionary into their existing T9 software as they would add new words as currently allowed by T9, which at the moment allow you to add words that are no in English or words you invent, to the T9 dictionary so that your phone remembers them. Is it possible to this with a whole dictionary rather than just a few words?

Hum really to do this one cleanly you’ll need to talk directly to T9 to have this language then convince a phone manufacturer to do it…Working in that area for a few years now , it is NOT easy!

3. How difficult is it to develop predictive SMS software for a small market like a country of 10 million cell phone users so that the software is only for their language, and what options does one have for platforms and collaborations to help bring such a product to market?

Yes this is the point : developping an SMS software, for today low cost phones is really not easy: it depends on the platform (hardware and software) and above all you’ll have to integrate it with the rest of the system, so you need to convince a phone manufacturer.

4. Is there software out there that has the infrastructure for predictive texting, yet is open to the customization to different English alphabet using languages, where one can just load what ever electronic dictionary they have of the desired language?

I know one very well : us (Open-Plug), but it is certainly not ready just now to allow a customer to add itself its own language (even if we have everything ready for it)

In fact in your case the best strategy would be that your main carrier issue an
RFQ (Request For Quotation) with your language as a specification, with a small-mid size phone manufacturer. If the possible market is 10 Millions, it is NOT small, but the action has to come from your carrier to be sure of the numbers.
The java application would be a good try to be sure of the potential market.

Be sure to check what MicroImage is doing for Sri Lanka where the language is really difficult to handle, you may find it interesting.

Hope this helps…

On the other way I’ve checked your web site and read some of the articles you mention about Micro-Finance, a really good read, thanks.
Some numbers amazed me about some emerging countries and the money people are willing to pay for their phone bill (few dollars a month! so it was meaning around 30% to 50% of their income), and I’m not all that confident with all this energy deployed by the mobile phone industry to get this money … it’s another story.

Regards
Thomas

1. Develop software with my language dictionary and sell it to the service provider?
2. Develop the software and have a way for people in my country to load the whole dictionary into their existing T9 software as they would add new words as currently allowed by T9, which at the moment allow you to add words that are no in English or words you invent, to the T9 dictionary so that your phone remembers them. Is it possible to this with a whole dictionary rather than just a few words?
3. How difficult is it to develop predictive SMS software for a small market like a country of 10 million cell phone users so that the software is only for their language, and what options does one have for platforms and collaborations to help bring such a product to market?
4. Is there software out there that has the infrastructure for predictive texting, yet is open to the customization to different English alphabet using languages, where one can just load what ever electronic dictionary they have of the desired language?

I know nothing about this world, I am just a consumer who wishes I had predictive text for the towns in my country and our National language. Your expertise would be so appreciated.

akinyiarunga – at – gmail – dot – com