Nokia challenges mobile developers

FINNISH PHONE MAKER Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo used his keynote at CES to offer $1 million (£620,000) to the developer who designs a mobile product to help improve the lives of the people in the developing world.

The Growth Economy Venture Challenge will accept both hardware and software ideas, and entries will be judged by a panel of Nokia staff and venture capitalists. The criteria of the competition is that the idea should have promise improve the lives of people who earn less than $5 (£3.10) per day.

"We have seen what the tech community can do when it focuses on problems that are also opportunities," Kallasvuo said. "We want to channel that energy towards improving lives in the developing world."

Kallasvuo said that mobile devices are key for enabling people in developing economies to get online, and that there are many more mobile phone users than people who have access to a computer. This means that the mobile industry has a vital role to play in the next generation coming online.

This also creates major challenges, though, such as how to design a phone for someone who is illiterate. Nokia is working on designing interfaces for these developing markets, but it has to be done using local knowledge and expertise.

"Business people often tend to lump all of the growing countries outside the West into one category," said Kallasvuo.

"They call them 'developing countries', 'emerging countries' or 'emerging markets'. Each of these markets is uniquely different and complex. A one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't work."

There are 4.6 billion mobile phones being used worldwide, but only 1.6 billion bank accounts, and Nokia is moving forward with its plans for a mobile phone banking system, Nokia Money, to address this disparity.

Kallasvuo showed as an example Nokia's first phone from 1987, the Mobira Cityman, which cost $6,000 (£3,720) compared to the 1606, which is the company's entry level model today and costs just $32 (£19.80). µ