Center for Afrikastudier (CAS) på Københavns er torsdag den 15. april vært for lanceringen af bogen ‘’M-Banking, an African Financial Revolution”, som udgives af FNs økonomiske kommission for Afrika.
Med tre oplæg forsøger CAS at give et overblik over fænomenet M-banking, der kort fortalt går ud på at man kan bruge sin mobiltelefon til at overføre og modtage penge. Mange afrikanere har ikke adgang til almindelige bankkonti, så den nye teknologi har åbnet en vifte af muligheder for dem.
Seminaret finder sted på Center for Afrikastudier, Købmagergade 46, 4. sal i auditorium 12. Der er fri entre.
Arrangementet foregår på engelsk.
Programmet ser således ud:
Welcoming remarks by Stig Jensen, Director, the Center of African Studies – University of Copenhagen
‘’M-Banking, an African Financial Revolution”, overview presentation by Ms Aida Opoku Mensah, Director ICT, Science and Technology Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
“Status of Mobile banking and m-commerce in Senegal”, by Ms Fatimata Sye Sylla, Director Bokk Jang Bokk Jeff, Dakar-Senegal
“A view of M-commerce in South Africa”, by Dr Simon Bachelor, Consultant on Mobile Government in Africa
Mobile phones leapfrog the infrastructure barriers in remote and rural areas in Africa. The phone can be the location for a banking account. People can now buy online, via swipe points in retail outlets, and mobile-to-mobile, using their mobile handsets as payment method, confirmation of identity, and security filter. The ’M-Banking, an African Financial Revolution” book is based on studies of m-banking in Senegal, Kenya, and South Africa. The book and the seminar assesses the status of the infrastructure, the m-services market, collaboration arrangements in the market etc.
Aida Opoku-Mensah, UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Development Information Services Division (ISTD), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She has worked on information ICT for development (ICT4D) initiatives throughout Africa. She has also edited and contributed to several publications on ICT.
Fatimata Seye Sylla holds a Master of Science from the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a DUT in Computer Science from IUT du Havre in France, a Certificate of Business Administration (CGE ) from CESAG, Dakar. Ms. Seye Sylla is author of several publications and studies in the fields of ICT and education, gender and development, ICT and democracy, Internet governance.
Simon Batchelor has worked for 30 years in Africa and Asia. Since 2001 he has been a Champion of mobile phone enabled financial services as one of the answers for the many in Africa who do not have access to the most basic of bank accounts. His work enabled the Kenyan system Mpesa, which now has 7 million users, and he is currently working with a number of other initiatives.
