Last night, I attended a panel session co-organized by the UN Foundation [1] and Vodafone, the huge multinational telco based in the UK but active worldwide. The session highlighted a report recently released by Vodafone entitled, Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones [2]. At the session, the report's authors discussed the impact of mobile telephony (a huge business) on development. Len Waverman, Chair of the Economics Department at London Business School [3], conducted an econometric study showing that mobile phone systems have a positive effect on economic growth - and that this effect is twice as strong in developing countries. The report also includes work by Diane Coyle's Enlightenment Economics [4] that demonstrates the power of mobile telephony to build social capital. All in all, it was a very interesting event, further cementing for me that mobile telephony can enable economic and social development in low-income countries. For more, read the report [5].