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Connecting Producers to Markets via SMS
We’re exploring the potential of cell phones to connect people in the developing world to ideas, information and capital.
The number of cell phone users in Africa continues to grow faster than anywhere else in the world. In 1998, only 2 million Africans had cell phones, and now that number is fast approaching 100 million.
In the dot-com boom of the 1990’s, Mark Davies developed several successful city-search and social networking web companies. Then, he sold them and went to Ghana, where he’s been working since 2000.
Mark’s the founder of TradeNet, a mobile phone trade platform that African farmers and traders to find buyers or sellers for their products.
Think of it as a craigslist for the African agriculturalist.
It keeps an online database of market information that is freely accessible through cell phones and the internet.
Before founding TradeNet, Mark started BusyInternet, which helps private IT firms in Ghana, and BusyLab, which develops new web and mobile-based software solutions to aid African economic growth.
We reached Mark Davies in Accra, and he told Jerome how people use cell phones in Ghana.
http://audio.wbez.org/wv/2007/04/wv_20070425b.mp3
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| category: |
Radio Script |
| author: |
www.chicagopublicradio.or |
| source link: |
www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_wv_Segment.aspx?segmentID=10311 |
| subregion : |
West Africa Agric Trade Network |
| date: |
27 Apr '07 |
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