MOBILE LEARNING EMPOWERING RURAL WOMEN A STUDY OF VIDIYAL (NGO) IN THENI DISTRICT, TAMILNADU
Journal Title: International Journal of Marketing and Technology - Year 2011, Vol 1, Issue 4
Abstract
Seventy-five per cent of the world‟s poorest people – 1.05 billion women, children and man – live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. Conventional wisdom would lead us to believe that for them mobile phone is a luxury. But we are wrong! A recent World Bank study states that “there is a myth that the rural poor are not able or not willing to pay for mobile telecommunication services”. Mobile phone‟s accessibility has allowed previously marginalized groups with no access to basic service to take an active part in the economic and social spheres of their communities. This social and economic inclusion has led to the willingness of poor rural households to spend 4-8% of their income on mobile telephony. The mobile telephony revolution is contributing substantially to achieving the targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially MDG1 “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” and more specifically to the target of “Halving, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day by 2015”. Africa would not be lagging behind on a number of MDGs, however, if back in 2000 world leaders has established an MDG similar to “Achieving universal primary education” (MDG2) for mobile telephony called “Achieving universal access” then, Africa would have met the targets with flying marks. Studies such as The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009 commissioned by the World Economic Forum to INSEAD provide thorough evidence of how “mobile telephony has proven instrumental in raising prosperity and reducing poverty in developing counties, where it has boomed in recent years-thanks also to a number of facilitating factors, including an infrastructure fairly easy to deploy, a market generally open to new entrants, and the decreasing costs of mobile handsets and communication per minute, among others”. This report makes the case that “mobile telecommunications has indeed had a positive disruptive impact on life in many developing economies, especially in rural areas. A 2005 London Business School study also found that “for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people, a country‟s gross domestic product (GDP) rises 0.5 percent”.
Authors and Affiliations
Dr. (Mrs. ) S. Hasan Banu
Keywords
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