Digital for Social

  Blackjack is one of the few casino games where sufficient knowledge about the order of the cards allows you to systematically beat the odds. The problem is that its hard both to keep track of the cards and to calculate whether to stick, twist or fold. In 1982 some adventurous geeks figured out that several pairs of eyes and some basic wearable computing might allow them to collaborate and win big; after a couple of practice runs they headed to Las Vegas, and, amazingly,  filmed their heist under the noses of the casino bosses . They called the subsequent documentary ’The Wedding Party’ because that’s what they posed as to avoid attracting suspicion about one group all being at the same table at once. At the end they get surrounded by a mob of burly security goons desperate to figure out how these guys’ luck was lasting so long. Wouldn’t it be good if we could similarly guarantee the outcome from tech bets on financial inclusion and poverty alleviation? Well, perhaps we ...

  De-regulated Britain has a nasty reputation for taxing poverty - the poor  pay much more for electricity , get  charged crippling interest rates , and get  ripped off when they buy things  (*see example below); it's been called a 'poverty premium'. It seems repellent but it makes commercial sense and it's all quite legal. The argument for allowing this predatory behaviour is that this is the only way for companies to serve this demographic profitably; the problems stem from the way companies market to people whose maths isn't good enough to work out they're being fleeced, or who feel they have no choices. The next generation of Ethiopia's farmers Those of us working in the mobile for development (M4D) sector in poorer parts of the world realise we have to grapple with the same basic issue: serving poor people is risky and if it doesn't cover its costs it won't happen once donor support is withdrawn. But if companies are allowed to prof...

  The other day in Addis Ababa I saw some astonishing numbers: since 1st July 2014 there have been over 3 million calls to   agricultural value-added service  Semanya Haya Simint  in Ethiopia . Big numbers for sure, but for how long have Ethiopian smallholder farmers been using this service? It would take years to build a service volume like that, right? Wrong; the service launched on 1st July  this year . in just 150 days from service launch there have been three million calls to a  hotline that gives information about on cereal, horticulture, and pulse/oil seed crops , as well as a wide range of agriculture-related activities. If  you've been to Ethiopia recently, you'll have grappled with a monopoly called Ethio Telecom that provides one of the most frustrating mobile phone services on Earth. Coverage is patchy; a "3G SIM", whatever that is, was unobtainable for much of Feb-June this year. To get mobile data t...

  How one mobile operator in Jordan is trying to bring mobile access to Asian women domestic workers denied a phone If the conservatively-minded patriarch of a household in the Middle East will not let his own daughters use a mobile phone, then why would he let the foreign domestic servant use one? There are tens of thousands of young Asian women living in households across the Middle East doing domestic work. Many  suffer labour rights abuses , from having their passports confiscated to non-payment of wages, 20+ hour a day working & lack of time off. One constant, that every domestic worker wants, is access to a mobile phone - but I interviewed a woman who was taken to the desert in a mock execution just because she had hidden a mobile phone against the wishes of her employer. One day we may see access to a mobile phone and the internet as a human right. Young women generally aspire to be connected to social networks, and to be free to chat and text with their friends and...

It's easy to take a wrong turn in Beirut After a couple of beers in the tourist district of Hamra in Beirut last November, I felt like taking a walk across town to Gemaizeh, a vibrant street lined with cozy bars and good music. Detoured by a checkpoint in the dark, I lost my sense of direction and found myself in an area that felt just ‘different’. Instead of people chatting in the street there were men, only men,  smoking shisha pipes in silence and eyeing me critically. I’d not noticed the black flags surrounding this little enclave and had walked into a very dangerous part of town, and it felt like it.   But what can we actually DO? Unexpectedly stepping into danger zones can happen anywhere, and the sudden sense of vulnerability can rapidly induce panic. In Beirut there's an under-current of tension because you know it's not safe, and it must have been the same for the girls in Northern Nigeria who ended up being kidnapped by Boko Haram and tagged #Brin...

  Back in February 2014 I was interviewed by The Guardian newspaper for their  Modern-day slavery hub.