The GSMA launched the Mobile and
Development Intelligence (MDI) project in conjunction with Omidyar
Network the philanthropic investment firm established by eBay founder
(Pierre Omidyar). Through an open access portal, MDI will offer data
and analysis to support business decision-making and clarify the
evidence of the socio-economic impact of the mobile industry in the
developing world. MDI will provide any user with over 70 metrics and
the ability to tabulate, graph, map and export the datasets with
country-level dashboards available for more than 140 developing world
countries. MDI will continually add new datasets throughout the
project and users can add data and content to the portal.
"The GSMA believes that open
access to high-quality data will improve business decision-making,
increase total investment from both the commercial mobile industry
and the development sector, and amplify economic, environmental and
social impact," said Chris Locke, Managing Director, GSMA
Development Fund. "The GSMA is uniquely positioned to aggregate
and host data and analysis on behalf of our mobile operator members
and the wider industry. This open data portal will provide for the
first time a complete landscape of the organizations and mobile
services that are influencing and changing lives in developing
populations throughout the world".
A challenge facing mobile industry
stakeholders in the developing world is the lack of publically
available data and analysis to support their business decision
making. MDI will fill this information gap and will aggregate and
host publically available data from multiple sources such as the
GSMA, the United Nations, the World Bank, the wider mobile industry
and development organizations.
MDI hosts a landscape of more than 800
organization profiles; in addition, over 750 products and services
have been summarized, with an initial focus on mobile money and
mobile health. Users can see these organizations, products and
services on a global map and search for particular types of
organizations. This will allow stakeholders to identify each other,
understand each other's offerings and objectives, and form
collaborations and partnerships.
There are an estimated 6.6 billion
mobile connections globally, with the developing world providing the
majority of global connections growth. The industry is moving beyond
basic voice to the use of mobile to deliver services in adjacent
sectors such as agriculture, education, financial services and
health. As the most widely adopted technology in history, mobile is
uniquely positioned to drive economic, environmental and social
benefit. MDI will help increase this momentum by providing a robust,
data-rich, user-friendly and freely available portal that offers a
new level of global visibility.
(Source: PR Newswire)
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