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With every debit card replaced by a thumbprint, every mutual fund peddled at a village store and every insurance policy sold in $2 bits, a new variety of bank is germinating in the bleak, unlikely soil of rural India.

One in nine human beings is an Indian villager, and 70 percent of Indian villagers have no bank account, inhabiting a financial parallel universe in which savings are a gold necklace and loans come from pistol-packing moneylenders.

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High taxes in many developing countries have made mobile communications unaffordable for hundreds of millions of people, holding back social and economic development, according to a study by the GSM Association (GSMA).

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Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Labs, has been outlining designs for a sub-$100 PC. The laptop will be tough and foldable in different ways, with a hand crank for when there is no power supply.

Professor Negroponte came up with the idea for a cheap computer for all after visiting a Cambodian village. His non-profit One Laptop Per Child group plans to have up to 15 million machines in production within a year.

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Taipei, Taiwan — The campaign to provide ultra low-cost handsets to developing markets crossed into its second phase Tuesday (Sept. 27) with Motorola Inc. rolling out several models based on its C11x platform that bring the wholesale cost below $30.

Motorola introduced the new models at the 3GSM World Congress in Singapore when the GSM Association revealed the company had again won the tender to supply handsets to operators in emerging countries. The phones are targeted for markets as diverse as India, South Africa, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines, and Yemen.

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"The best solutions are found when the public and private sectors join forces."

Sir, Jeffrey Sachs' article ("Ambition and action are as important as commitments", September 15) calls for urgent, comprehensive action by the international community to achieve internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals and a "Green Revolution" for Africa.

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The market at the bottom of the pyramid has begun to attract the attention of a variety of industries; one of the most recent being the semiconductor industry.
 
A German company, Infineon Technologies, has developed a platform design for an ultra low-cost (ULC) mobile phone that the company believes could bring down the production cost of a functional mobile phone to below $20 from the current level of $35.
 
At a press conference held today by Infineon, S Surya, managing director of Infineon Technologies India, drew a comparison between the automobile and semiconductor industries when it came to new product development.
 
Surya said that Infineon operated on the basis of a “platform.” As in the case of the automobile industry, different products were rolled out of the same platform, a feature, which made the development of lower cost products a reality.
 
The economic rationale for Infineon’s new platform design was provided by the significant growth expected at the entry level mobile phones. Strategy Analytics, a consultancy, has forecast that ULC phones would exceed 150 million in five years from the relatively insignificant level at present.
 
Surya said that the industry’s cut-off for an ULC mobile phone was one that cost less than $ 50 (about Rs 2,200). With about two million new mobile connections added every month, India is one of the key markets for Infineon’s platform design for the ULC phones.
 
Surya said that the company is currently in talks with mobile phone manufacturers to contract out its chips for the new phones. Once the talks are successfully completed, the stage would be set for mass production.
 
Infineon’s new platform design needs below 100 components, as compared to the approximately 200 components needed by the models produced today, said a company release.

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"It's a business, not a moral, rating. It looks at the world's biggest corporations and asks, Do they understand how to create and exploit effective business opportunities by addressing the needs of the poor? Do they understand how to make money by investing in environmentally sound business practices? Are they, in short, prepared to maximize the opportunities for our changing world?"

Corporate social responsibility used to be simple: Present an oversized check to charity, get photographed with some sick kids, and call it a day. Now the world's largest corporations are expected not only to make money for their shareholders but also to do good by their stakeholders—a much broader group that includes anyone and anything affected by their business, from employees to emus.

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Big business does much more to end global poverty than you might suppose.  Last summer I had a choice. On the one hand, I could take a senior role in a progressive think-tank at a fascinating time in British politics: the Blairite agenda was long in the tooth and the big questions - about justice, equality and nationhood - were proving themselves very much alive. On the other hand, I could join a consultancy helping international businesses sell to the world's four billion poorest people.

The choice proved easy. Politics felt too slow, too laden with history, too redolent of hours spent in tedious circumlocution at student union meetings, and far too dogmatic. By contrast, the consultancy and its clients had passionate people who just wanted to get good things done.

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The Tech Museum of Innovation today announced the 25 Laureates for the 2005 Tech Museum Awards, presented by Applied Materials, Inc. At a black tie awards gala on November 9, Silicon Valley leaders and representatives from partners the United Nations Development Programme, The World Bank Institute, and Santa Clara University, will honor all 25 for their pioneering work in developing technology for the benefit of humanity. Five of these Laureates will share a $250,000 cash prize.

Annually, The Tech Awards honor individuals, for-profit, public and not-for-profit organizations from around the world who are applying technology to profoundly improve the human condition in the areas of environment, economic development, education, equality and health.

An esteemed panel of judges considered 560 nominations, representing 80 countries. The 25 Laureates come from Brazil, Canada, Cuba, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. Their work impacts people in 43 countries around the globe.

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Mobile phone giant Nokia said Wednesday it was expanding its range with a new handset to sell cheaply in rapidly growing emerging markets.

The Finnish group said the folding 2652 model would have an estimated retail price of 100 euros ($121) and be sold from next month in China, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

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