Sunday, November 27, 2005

Bangladesh's villages are joining the digital age

'Telephone ladies' connect Bangladesh : BBC

Telephone ladies are bringing technology to rural areas. Roshinara Begum sells calls. She's become one of Bangladesh's telephone ladies.

Grameen has given loans to 180,000 telephone ladies so far, and 10,000 more are being signed up each month.

The key to the success of the scheme is that it is not charity - every month Grameen gets $10m in revenue.

Grameen is now hoping to bring the web to rural areas too.

It has given loans to set up three experimental internet cafes, connected wirelessly.

If successful, they will be expanded nationwide. Thanks to innovative finance, Bangladesh's villages are joining the digital age.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Assalam alaikum Razib Bhai. Nice website. I just realized how long I have been away from Bangladesh. Insha Allah, I will talk to you more in the future. We definitely need to improve things back home...So what do these telephone ladies do? and WOW is there is wireless in the villages? that's great. maybe we can make them accesible to kids one day so that they can learn. May Allah uplift the ummah once again. Assalam alaikum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu. Your brother,
-Mahboob smr8r4@umkc.edu

10:45 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home