Cellphones are cheap, durable data terminals.
Idea: Cellphones for solders-style drive to collect used cellphones and donate them overseas.
Simple mobile-web-based tools that could help people?
- Agricultural information (per location)
- Crowdsourced-crises info
- http://ushahidi.com
- http://twitter.com mashups?
Elsewhere
- The Economist: Telecoms in Emerging Markets. Podcast interview here.
- The UN used text-messaging as a bootstrapped food-stamp system for Iraqi refugees. "All the 130,000 Iraqi refugees currently receiving food aid from the agency in Syria have mobile phones."