Short description
Bangladeshi villagers with mobile phones helped build a thriving $200m company. What is the lesson for the rest of the world? This book answers this question through the story of Iqbal Quadir, a local entrepreneur.
Long description
Bangladeshi villagers sharing cell phones helped build what is now a thriving company with more than $200 million in annual profits. But what is the lesson for the rest of the world? This is a question author Nicholas P. Sullivan addresses in his tale of a new kind of entrepreneur, Iqbal Quadir, the visionary and catalyst behind the creation of GrameenPhone in Bangladesh. GrameenPhone a partnership between Norway's Telenor and Grameen Bank, co-winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, defines a new approach to building business opportunities in the developing world. "You Can Hear Me Now" offers a compelling account of what Sullivan calls the "external combustion engine" - a combination of forces that is sparking economic growth and lifting people out of poverty in countries long dominated by aid-dependent governments. The "engine" comprises three forces: information technology, imported by native entrepreneurs trained in the West, backed by foreign investors.
Review
...describes an inclusive capitalism that engages and enables many of the three billion people living on $1 a day (Credit Control, June 2007)
Table of contents
- Preface.The Author.Introduction: The Three Forces of External--Combustion.Part I: The GrameenPhone Story.1. Connectivity Is Productivity.2. Dish--Wallahs of Delhi (and Other Early Models).3. Cell Phone as Cow: A New Paradigm in Search of Investors.4. On the Money Trail in Scandinavia.5. Building a Company.6. Building a Network.Part II: Transformation Through Technology.7. Wildfire at the Bottom of the Pyramid.8. Cell Phone as Wallet.9. Wealth Creation and Rural Income Opportunities.10. Beyond Phones: In Search of a New Cow.11. Eyeing the Dhaka Stock Exchange.Epilogue.Notes.Resources.Index.