CellBazaar, a kind of “Craig’s list for cell phones” that is available only on GrameenPhone in Bangladesh, won the Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development Award at the GSM Association’s blowout meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Here’s the citation:

“Grameenphone CellBazaar is a user-generated virtual marketplace, accessible via mobile phone or PC to nearly 17 million people in Bangladesh. In developing countries, limited communications hinder commerce and uninformed farmers and traders have little bargaining power with exploitative middlemen. Using CellBazaar, buyers and sellers trade basic goods from their mobiles, bringing the benefits of information exchange and one-to-many trading to a previously unwired rural population. Users post or search an item, spending less than US$.02, either by SMS or WAP or WEB, depending on their preferences. While common telephony establishes one-to-one communication, CellBazaar links many-to-many using the same basic mobile infrastructures.”

Judges’ comments: “Great initiative – full marks for self-sustainability. This grass root level initiative is not only for operators to make money but for rural folks to sell and trade their goods and increased price transparency and help for the illiterate is also available. It has clear environmental benefits through reduced travel.”

CellBazaar was founded by Kamal Quadir, brother of Iqbal Quadir, one of the founders of GrameenPhone. The company was initially developed by Quadir when he was a student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and was a prize winner at MIT’s annual $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

See the proud press release on Telenor’s web site.

I’m appearing on CSPAN-2′s BookTV this Saturday, March 17 at 10 pm. The event was filmed at the Aspen Institute on Feb. 21, a roundtable luncheon that includes me and Iqbal Quadir, the driving force behind GrameenPhone in Bangladesh.

The show may also air on Sunday (check the BookTV schedule), and may then be viewable in the BookTV archives, but I don’t know for sure.

BookTV runs 48 hours every weekend, from Sat 8 am to Monday 8 am.

As the book rolls off the press and nears publication date (Feb. 2), an early proof has garnered early reviews.

Library Journal (no access without subscription):

“This book offers valuable insights about the use of cell phones and technology-based investments to generate wealth and demonstrates that entrepreneurship may be more fruitful than aid. This valuable work can be effectively integrated into public administration, global business, and human resource academic courses.”

Caroline Geck, Kean Univ. Lib., Union, NJ

Next Billion.net (by Rob Katz)

“…This a history of sorts, about how Iqbal Quadir came to launch GrameenPhone.  Sullivan doesn’t claim to offer new or different strategies to engage BOP [bottom of the pyramid] markets; he simply sets out to tell the tale of an expat Bengali and his innovative phone company.  You Can Hear Me Now is well-written and very engaging, as the author enjoyed good access to some of the stories’ major players.  A smart manager can learn from GrameenPhone without being led by the hand, and Sullivan’s storytelling and analysis open up the case in a way that we haven’t before seen.  The book’s out next month; in the mean time, check out his blog.”

World Bank: Private Sector Development blog (by Christine Bowers)

“…the first half of this book tells the GrameenPhone story, the second is a grab-bag of other technology initiatives, including many players in the m-banking world. If the Nobel Prize win peaked your interest in all things Grameen, buy a copy when it comes out next month. In general, I’m not too sure that a book is the best format for telling these stories – hard to give substantive coverage to a field that moves so quickly in time. Fortunately, Nick also has a blog.”

Thanks to all for their interest and attention.

From issue #39 of Ode magazine, which has done a great job of reporting on the Grameen empire over the years, a cover story on Muhammad Yunus, with some insight into what makes the Nobel laureate tick: 

In his phenomenal book The Tipping Point, journalist Malcolm Gladwell discusses how “social epidemics” come into being, whether the trend involves the miraculous comeback of outmoded shoes or a seemingly inexplicable increase in suicides among young adults in Micronesia. Gladwell distinguishes among three types of people, all of whom play a crucial role in helping bring an idea into the world: connectors (who have the right contacts), mavens (knowledgeable people with a strong need to help others make an informed choice) and salespeople (who influence people to buy certain things or behave a certain way).

Muhammad Yunus embodies at least two of these types, according to Iqbal Quadir, who took the initiative to establish a nationwide cellphone company in Bangladesh with the help of Grameen Bank, what later became known as GrameenPhone (see Ode, April 2005).

“Yunus is a super connector. He knows exactly what to say when he is with people like Bill Clinton, who helped Yunus be known around the world, or when he is talking to poor people in the villages in Bangladesh. He can connect with people easily.” And Yunus is a salesperson par excellence in a positive sense, says Quadir: “He can convince people easily.”

But there’s an even more important factor at play, according to Quadir, founder and director of the MIT Program in Developmental Entrepreneurship. Yunus is “a very practical man,” he says. In other words: Yunus gets things done.