Helen Wang: e-Mobilizer makes 2nd round of BASES e-Challenge
e-Mobilizer, a Stanford Digital Vision social entrepreneurship project bringing under-privileged micro-entrepreneurs access to the larger public market, made it to the second round of the BASES Entrepreneurship Challenge – one of the world’s most prestigious business plan competition.
The competition is composed of three rounds. Among the 75 business plans submitted, 22 of them were selected to advance to the second round. For round 2, the competitors must submit Business Plans by April 3, and six candidates will be selected to move onto the final round. The final round presentation will take place on May 12.
The e-Mobilizer service is a Web portal with a mobile interface that allows users to post their products and service information via cell phones to the Internet marketplace to engage in a sale.
The single biggest problem facing micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries is the inability to access the larger public market and its market information. They do not have efficient channels to reach customers. This disadvantage creates a major obstacle that limits their potential, and often forces them into a life of hopelessness and poverty.
e-Mobilizer solves this problem by leveraging the existing cellular infrastructure to connect micro-entrepreneurs to the Internet marketplace through cell phones. The service empowers micro-entrepreneurs, mostly women, and helps them to grow their businesses and generate incomes to send their children to schools.
“Just like microcredit gives the poor people access to capital,” said Helen Wang, the Reuters Digital Vision Fellow who leads the e-Mobilizer project, “e-Mobilizer gives them access to markets and information. It is a powerful means to fight global poverty.”
There were about 330 million cell phone users in China at the end of 2004, in contrast with 80 million Internet users. The number of cell phone users is predicted to reach 550 million in China and more than 3 billion worldwide by 2008.
Other members on the e-Mobilizer team include Stanford Business School students Allen Arseneau, Mike Alimurung, and Tai Kim, Stanford undergraduates MingGang Guo and Elaine Choi, Stanford graduate student in Computer Science Huan Jiang and Jiang Xuan.
- By Elain Choi