Bringing ICT to the poor

Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus has announced a deal involving the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and some of the world's biggest telecommunications companies to help bring ICT to the poor.

Yunus aims to combine the power of ICT with micro-credit financing to help the poor to earn sustainable incomes.

The program is patterned after his Grameen Bank micro-credit program which provides small loans at low interest rates to millions of poor people in Bangladesh in order to stimulate entrepreneurship.

Grameen will be reaching out to more than 3000 micro-finance organizations and 100 million borrowers world wide, while the ITU will leverage on the support of its 191 member states and some 650 private sector members from around the world.

• Talkback
• Print
• E-mail
• Share
• Alerts

Slashdot

Digg

Facebook

Twitter

Delicious

reddit

Google

StumbleUpon

close this

Talkback 0 comments

• M'sian broadband wars heat up
• Macs: No longer last bastion of invulnerability
• Do you really need an iPhone?
• Following through novel initiatives is key
• Is censorship the answer?

• Bahasa or English? One step forward, two steps back?
• The blog that refused to be written
• Do you really need an iPhone?
• Is censorship the answer?
• Macs: No longer last bastion of invulnerability

2009

2008

2007

2006

• Buying a projector? Try an LED TV instead
• Lift-and-shift: Resurgence or flame-out
• Time to map out
• Ultimate 2012 recovery site: the moon
• Amendments to empower Copyright Tribunal

Edwin Yapp

An engineer by training, Edwin first cut his teeth as a cellular radio frequency optimization engineer in one of Malaysia's largest telcos. After more than five years, he hung up his radio engineering boots to try his hand at technology reporting at The Star, Malaysia's leading English daily, where he won several awards for Best Online Technology reporting. He left to start his own editorial consultancy and is now a freelance journalist for several publications, including ZDNet Asia. A self-confessed gadget geek, Edwin hopes his blog contributions will stir up deeper discussions within the Malaysian technology scene.