In July 2008 I was sitting in eBay Leadership training and was asked to tell the group what inspired me about my work. I got up and immediately began telling the story of the Masai tribe I had visited just a week before while on holiday. These people had no running water, no electricity… they dressed in traditional outfits, beautiful red and purple blankets. They carried sticks. Their shoes were made of old tires. They had little to no modern-day luxuries, but they did have one device… mobile phones.
At the time, I had been driving PayPal Mobile’s business development efforts in North America for nearly two years and realized there was no reason why these Masai shouldn’t be able to participate in the global economy any longer, selling their wares on eBay or receiving remittances from abroad using their mobile phones. The only limiting factor was our imagination, our desire, our ability to connect the dots, and our know-how to make it happen. It was at that moment that I painted a vision that I would make this happen, that I would help build mobile payments systems to move money from those who have it to those who need it, getting these people closer to long-term financial stability and connecting the global market. I would use the knowledge I had gained over the past three years in mobile payments and mobile banking to do so. After leaving PayPal soon thereafter, I started my mobile payments consulting practice, www.mpayconnect.com and have been working with clients to realize that vision.
During this time, a friend told me about Ken Banks and introduced us over email. After communicating for nearly 6 months in cyberspace, Ken and I met in person in San Francisco. As I learned more about FrontlineSMS, I remembered my work with open source back in 2000-2003 and knew that the disruptive power it had with servers could be used for mobile payments. I asked him how I could help build a payments vertical on top of his platform. He looked at me puzzled and said, “You don’t know Ben?”
When I heard what Ben Lyon and his team of nearly twenty committed volunteers were doing with Frontline SMS:Credit, I felt compelled to help them bring their efforts to market. Ben and I met in NYC at the Yale Club one afternoon with another African colleague. As we sat at that club discussing informal financial systems in Africa, the power of mobile payments, and the need for interoperability, I decided to make a donation to his efforts.
We need organizations like FrontlineSMS and FrontlineSMS:Credit to realize the vision of financial inclusion world-wide. Rather than citing all the reasons why mobile payments and interoperability are difficult or can’t happen, Ben and his team have been pushing it forward. Efforts like theirs cater to the needs of the people who need it most which, at the end of the day, are the most important constituents to consider. My hope is that the small donation that we made will help realize the vision of moving money from those who have it to those who are in need of it, getting these people closer to long-term financial stability.
Menekse Gencer is Principal of mPay Connect, a consulting service for clients seeking to launch mobile payments. mPay Connect specializes in providing assistance in Strategy, Business Development and Product Planning. Prior to founding mPay Connect, Menekse led PayPal Mobile’s Business Development efforts. During this time, she secured PayPal’s first Mobile Network Operator deal and launched PayPal Send Money on Sprint’s mobile wallet. Previously, she ran Gateway’s Product Planning Division for Enterprise Software. mPay Connect is the first official sponsor of FrontlineSMS:Credit.
Menekse,
Appreciate your post! I’d welcome inputs on a recent idea I had on potential for new mobile apps to accelerate adoption of the personal currency ideas that Douglas Rushkoff advanced in his “Radical Abundance” talk.
Below are preliminary ideas on how (Frontline SMS compatible?) mobile apps or mashups could support exchanges of time-based personal currencies.
In short, growth of Augmented Reality functions on cameraphones will enable individuals to size up opportunities for exchange of personal currencies with interested parties. Taking a photo with an AR-enabled phone can trigger essentially immediate popups of related information about the person in focus.
Individuals can upload personal profiles that would be visible (if desired) to AR-enabled cell phones. These public or semi-public profiles can include a listing of their wants – and of personal offers to make specific kinds of time/skill donations or trades.
When a conversation with another person led to a decision to explore a transaction of time-based services, an AR app or mashup for personal currency exchange would make the related profile information from both parties mutually visible.
Each popup profile could include links to a trusted third party site where one can review or drill into summaries of prior work done and explore feedback ratings earned from past services.
With this information, the parties might agree an exchange rate (e.g. Doug Rushkoff’s 1 hour = Mark’s 3.5 hours) and commit to give one another personal time donation vouchers for the agreed number of hours and types of service.
The time-based vouchers could be converted into services by the agreeing parties, or (upon mutual consent before the voucher was given) by transfers to third parties for projects fitting criteria set out by the issuer of the voucher on his or her AR-linked profile site.
2. If the parties disagreed over the “exchange rate” for their respective time donation offers, the AR personal currencies app would offer a potential solution. It would give the parties the option to hold a real-time auction for a given number of pledged time donation vouchers hours on eBay or on a dedicated spot auction site.
This spot auction – if successful – would set the market value of the individual’s time vouchers in terms of preferred currencies that other party was seeking.
I’m sure that there are a number of issues (secure data sharing, online dispute resolution, digital notarization, etc) that would have to be rigorously developed in an operational AR-enabled personal currency app. But it seems likely that many of the components are within reach to create a mashup of a working prototype.
Look forward to your ideas on how we might proceed on developing a spec for such a prototype – and on allies who may be interested in seeing it move ahead.
Best,
Mark Frazier
Openworld.com
@openworld