Cellphones Poverty

Article

A New York Times Magazine feature by Sara Corbett profiles Jan Chipchase, a Nokia “human-behaviour researcher” who travels the world studying how people in developing countries actually use mobile phones, from a shoe salesman’s family in a Mumbai slum to street vendors and commuters elsewhere. The piece explores whether the humble cellphone — already reshaping commerce, identity and communication for the poor — could become one of the most powerful tools yet for tackling global poverty, and questions whether handset design driven by engineers far from these markets truly serves the people using them.