last weekend, i volunteered a bit of my time helping out at “a better world by design”, a student organized conference at brown. on sunday, i attended the last keynote presentation of the conference, by iqbal quadir, the founder of grameenPhone.
grameenphone was started with the idea in mind that you shouldn’t have to be wealthy to be granted access to telephone service. quadir’s vision was to create universal access to telephone service in bangladesh, mainly aimed at the poor, rural communities. his philosophy was that we shouldn’t be sending aid to countries in the form of food, first aid, and everything else we are currently doing, but instead, the big companies of the world should put their effort into developing those poor countries. then, out of the support and money that companies put into these poor countries, they will in time improve and grow out of poverty. quadir made a point that we should look back to history and follow the examples that have been set before us, to look at nations that prospered and grew, while also taking note of the ones that fell. by looking at the reasons and causes for the fate of many of these societies of the past, quadir concluded that intervention of the rich will be the biggest form of support we can provide for poor countries.
quadir started grameenphone in 1997, and since then has become the largest mobile phone company in Bangladesh, with more than 20 million customers.
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