You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the World's Poor To the Global Economy [Hardcover]

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.

GrameenPhonea partnership between Norway's Telenor and Grameen Bank, co-winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prizedefines 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.

Preface vii

The Author xv

Introduction: The Three Forces of xvii

External Combustion

Part I: The GrameenPhone Story

1. Connectivity Is Productivity 3

2. Dish-Wallahs of Delhi (and Other 17 Early Models)

3. Cell Phone as Cow: A New Paradigm in Search of Investors 35

4. On the Money Trail in Scandinavia 51

5. Building a Company 71

6. Building a Network 87

Part II: Transformation Through Technology

7. Wildfire at the Bottom of the Pyramid 107

8. Cell Phone as Wallet 125

9. Wealth Creation and Rural Income Opportunities 145

10. Beyond Phones: In Search of a New Cow 161

11. Eyeing the Dhaka Stock Exchange 181

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