iBoP Asia 2008 Small Grant Projects – March 2010 Jakarta
Exhibits of projects completed displayed at the Frontiers seminar on March 3rd in Jakarta, Indonesia. Click on photos to see details. continued in next post.
Prepaid pricing plans and the financially savvy BoP buyer: A discussion
Rural grocery shop, South Africa January 2008 While putting together my post on demanding BoP customers today, I came across this snippet from an article titled "Getting to know the sophisticated prepaid user" from The Philippines (one of the field locations for the user research documented on this site). Its a quote attributed to the […]
Synthesis of the Prepaid Economy Project
The impetus for the Prepaid Economy project came from field observations during other projects which focused on the design and development of products and services for those at the BoP. It was noted that the majority of the BoP lived on irregular incomes derived from a variety of sources, while few business models or payment […]
Increasing the customer’s span of control seems to imply success
We broke down the basic concept of the 'pay as you go' or prepaid mobile plan – in general, discounting the details of the various different strategies and pricing/time plans of different countries as a way to begin understanding what is it about this model that makes it work at the BoP, now in the […]
Sudhir Venkatesh and the rise of the “other” BoP
Photo credit: Jim Wilson/The New York Times Even as we observe and study those who live on irregular and unpredictable incomes in the lower income strata of the developing world, articles in the media this week catch our attention to inform us that these challenges are not simply for the 'poor' but in fact, being […]
Creativity goes hand in hand with entreprenuership
Furniture designer & artisan, Iloilo Province, February 24th 2009 Jesse is just 30 years old. A year ago, he sold his motorcycle to obtain the working capital to start his own handmade furniture design workshop, here on the main road. He pays 300 pesos a month to rent this highly visible location and lives onsite. […]
Stories from Malawi: how to barter your phone for 4 goats
Photo credit: John Lumbe, Malawi, March 2009 John Lumbe reports on how the barter system works in his home region in Malawi: It has never been simple to determine the trade. It mostly goes with agreement of the parties entering the contract. Like the one I talked about in my blog post, happened in the […]
Inspired by pay as you go fresh water
Gines Patag, The Philippines, February 21st, 2009 Right after my recent post where I wondered if business models and payment plans for those who live on irregular and unpredictable incomes could be designed to be as adaptable and flexible as the informal economy, I came across this snippet today that gives much food for […]
Coming soon: more stories from Malawi
Our friend, John Lumbe, who blogs at Ambitious and has his own Flickrstream, will be helping the Prepaid Economy project remotely from Malawi. Studying at the Malawi College of Accountancy, John is working his way through school. Expect to hear from him over the next few months, in the meantime, here is a short story […]
The ability to choose your tradeoffs is empowering
Sari shop, Old Delhi, India, January 9th 2009 Sonia is just 26 years old. She went to work at age 9, when other little girls were going to school. She didn't say if she started working as a gofer in a beauty parlour after school and actually graduated, though it seems likely since she sounded […]
