15 Million Africans are ready for work. Got tasks?

From the TXTEAGLE website:

The impact of mobile phones throughout the world has been widely documented. These devices now function as fundamental tools instrumental to billions of economic livelihoods. The transformative impact of what is now the fastest technology adoption in human history has had the most dramatic ramifications within some of our most underserved societies. Indeed, while mobile phones were originally designed for Western business executives, the vast majority of mobile phone subscribers today live in the developing world. Africa, with East Africa at the forefront, is currently the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world.

As the price of unlocked GSM phones (complete with sim card and airtime) falls below US$20 in many of these markets, the mobile phone has become many people’s single technology purchase. As such, the expectations for this technology far exceed simply two-way communication. In East Africa, where over 90% of the population live in an area with GSM reception, mobile phones are also expected to serve as flashlights, as music players, and now, even as digital wallets.

The reduction in the price of handsets has allowed a dramatic increase in the number of individuals relying on this technology to do their jobs. Day laborers repairing roads throughout Nairobi no longer need to congregate in the morning in central areas throughout the city waiting for prospective employers to collect them for the day’s work. Instead, in many of these regions, daily labor is now organized via text message.

However, with unemployment levels rising to almost fifty percent in countries such as Kenya, there are still hundreds of millions of mobile phone subscribers who are unable to find consistent work. Given high rates of unemployment and marginal income sources, many of the more than 2 billion mobile phone subscribers currently living in the developing world would greatly benefit from even an extra dollar per day. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk has successfully introduced “human intelligence tasks” that can be completed by individuals with a personal computer connected to the internet for small amounts of money. We apply the same principle to “txteagle”, a mobile phone-based system that untethers these tasks from the PC and offers them to the world’s billions of mobile phone users – providing an additional source of supplementary income to rural and low income populations.

YouTube – eTech txteagle short.

Plus, this report on how wireless networks are developing in emerging markets.