New Scientist interviews Jan Chipchase, whose travels around the globe as a design researcher for Nokia have lead to many stunning insights as to how foreign countries use mobile technology. “The common denominator between cultures, regardless of age, gender or context is: keys, money and, if you own one, a mobile phone,” he says, “[It] boils down to survival. Keys provide access to warmth and shelter, money is a very versatile tool that can buy food, transport and so on. A mobile phone, people soon realise, is a great tool for recovering from emergency situations, especially if the first two fail.” He gives an fascinating example of Ugandians using their prepaid mobile cards as a money transfer system, “They would buy prepaid credit in the city, ring up a phone kiosk operator in a village, read out the number associated with that credit so that the kiosk operator could top up their own phone, then ask that the credit be passed on to someone in the village - say, their sister - in cash.”
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