Iqbal Quadir, the founder of Grameenphone, and Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of One Laptop per Child, discuss the role of technology in development. Q. If we assume that technology will help bring the benefits of the modern world to developing societies, we can also assume that the resources to bring a full com- plement of that technology to poor countries probably don’t exist. Both laptops and cell phones have proven to have dramatic effects on populations. Which offers more of a benefit? Quadir. Having struggled to bring cell phones to poor communities since 1993, I of course have a biased opinion. I would say cell phones bring greater ben- efits. There are several reasons why. Prominent among them is the fact that voice communications do not require literacy and are thus more egalitarian and more inclusive. While cell phones are natural devices for networking, their inclusiveness gives rise to a profound network effect. The second important reason is that peo- ple find an immediate payback through enhanced communications, which leads to a willingness and capability of paying for cell phone services. Connectivity is pro- ductivity. This phenomenon changes the economic ground realities and produces greater traction for phones. Their benefits proliferate, organically. © 2009 Good Magazine innovations / winter 2009 25 Iqbal Quadir and Nicholas Negroponte Phone vs. Laptop Which Is a More Effective Tool for Development? Iqbal Z. Quadir is the founder of GrameenPhone, Emergence BioEnergy, and the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With Professor Philip Auerswald, he is the co-founder and co- editor of Innovations. Nicholas Negroponte is founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child nonprof- it organization. He is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was co-founder and director of the Media Lab and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology. This debate originally appeared in the January 2009 issue of Good Magazine <www.good.is>. Innovations thanks the editors of Good for permission to reprint this debate. Downloaded from http://mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/itgg.2009.4.1.25 by guest on 16 November 2022