Mobilmentum: Accelerating Mobile For Development SWF – 2013
Speakers
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Senior Director, GSMA Mobile for Development
Fiona Smith is a Senior Director at GSMA Mobile for Development which works with mobile operators to accelerate mobile solutions for people living under $2 per day. Fiona leads the service programme area which includes mAgriculture, mHealth, mobile for employment and digital inclusion. During her time at GSMA she founded the mAgriculture programme and managed a range of rural connectivity projects across Africa and Asia. Prior to joining the GSMA, Fiona worked for Accenture, VSO and as an independent consultant. Fiona is particularly interested in how to use technology to enable sustainable and ethical supply chains and linkages.
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Founder, Praekelt.org
Gustav Praekelt is the founder and chairman of the Africa-based Praekelt Group - a leader in the use of open source mobile technologies to deliver essential information and inclusive services to millions of people around the world, especially in Africa.
In 2003, he founded Praekelt Consulting, a for-profit helping clients to deliver content and information to any handset across the African continent. Praekelt Consulting has been responsible for many seminal launches in the African digital arena including the launch of mobile television, the first use of Social Impact Please Call Me technology, and the integrated use of mobile internet across the Sub-Saharan region.
His belief in the power of mobile phones to transform lives inspired him to establish the Praekelt.org in 2006 - A social enterprise that develops scalable mobile solutions for social good, whose programmes have reached over 100 million people across 30 countries in Africa.
In 2013 Gustav founded JoziHub , a technology startup launchpad and co-creation space in the heart of Johannesburg dedicated to creating sustainable change in Africa.
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Founder, kiwanja.net, FrontlineSMS
Ken Banks, Founder of kiwanja.net and FrontlineSMS, devotes himself to the application of mobile technology for positive social and environmental change in the developing world. He has worked at the intersection of technology, anthropology, conservation and development for the past 20 years, and has lived and worked across the African continent. He is a PopTech Fellow, a Tech Awards Laureate, an Ashoka Fellow and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and has been internationally recognised for his technology-based work.
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Director of Mobile Solutions, USAID
Priya Jaisinghani serves as Senior Advisor to the Administrator and the Director of Mobile Solutions for the U.S. Agency for International Development. She has previously served as Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launching a $1 billion Global Development Program, and as Development Officer in the South Asia Program of the UN Foundation. Priya received a BA in Commerce from the University of Virginia and received an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University’s SAIS.
