Mobile e-Learning at the Base of the Pyramid

The notion “Base of the Pyramid” refers to those 4 billion people who have an annual income of less than 3,000 USD. Thanks to the penetration of mobile telephony among these people new educational opportunities have emerged.

Mr. Bhanu Potta is an educational specialist who works at Nokia. He and his team have created a suite of services called Nokia Life, which enables the transmission of educational and lifelong learning courses to basic, text-based telephones. Courses are available in several fields such as education, entrepreneurship, health, agriculture and languages. School going kids can practice subject content after school, pregnant women can receive pregnancy advice and farmers can learn of new methods to increase their crop yield. The cost for the services is as low as 0.50 USD per month. In some cases the costs are covered by NGOs funding. Nokia Life is presently available in India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria and Kenya. More than 100 million people have already experienced Nokia Life.

The services are available in 20 local languages. Mr. Potta gave a presentation at the recent AMBA conference and he told that local language is important to get acceptance for services at the base of the pyramid. In Africa, the services are available in local variations of Hausa and Pidgin English in Nigeria and Swahili in Kenya to fit the taste of the users.