Grameen Telecom (GTC) is a "Private Limited Company" by guarantee in
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
established by
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance ...
with a partial stake in
Grameen Phone (GP). GTC has driven the pioneering GP program of Village Phone that enables rural poor to own a cell-phone and turn it into a profit making venture. The vision behind the village phone program was formulated by
Iqbal Quadir
Iqbal Z. Quadir ( bn, ইকবাল জেড. কাদীর) is an entrepreneur and promoter of the role of entrepreneurship and innovations in creating prosperity in low-income countries. He has taught at Harvard Kennedy School and at Mas ...
who was convinced that a mobile phone could become a source of income generation. Quadir worked with Yunus and the Norwegian company
Telenor to make the program a reality.
Programs
Grameen Telecom has different programs to include rural people into the world of
information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...
. The
Village Phone (Polli Phone; spelling ; pronunciation ) program is the largest among them.
Village Phone
Village Phone is a unique idea that provides modern
telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
services to underprivileged people in Bangladesh. To become a
subscriber of a Village Phone, one must first become a member of
Grameen Bank.
These mobile phones have very cheap billing rates and are also given on easy loans from Grameen Bank. Once given a phone, the subscriber is encouraged to provide the services to the people in the adjoining area, covering both outgoing and incoming calls. In this way, he or she can earn money to repay his or her debt to the bank as well as to earn a profit. Many inhabitants of the rural area of Bangladesh, particularly underprivileged women, have been able to change their lives with the help of Village Phone.
Information kiosks
Besides the revolutionary Village Phone program, Grameen Telecom also provides
information kiosk
Historically, a kiosk () was a small garden pavilion open on some or all sides common in Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward. Today, several examples of this type of kiosk still exist in an ...
s. Initially, three pilot kiosks were set up in
Tangail district
Tangail ( bn, টাঙ্গাইল জেলা) formerly a small Mohokuma of Greater Mymensingh district is a district (''zila'') in the central region of Bangladesh. In 1969, Tangail district was created by Tangail Mohokuma from its 237 ...
. These kiosks are set up to provide people in the villages of Bangladesh with access to
information and communication technology
Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications ( telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...
.
Awards
* CAPAM Bronze Award for Service to the Public 1998.
* GSM Association Award for "GSM Community Service" in 1998.
* Petersburg Prize for "Use of IT to improve Poor People's Lives" in 2004.
* First ITU World Information Society Award in 2005.
Sources
Village Phone page on Grameen Phone website Talk by Iqbal Quadir TED Global talking about the Grameen Telecom program
Telecommunications companies of Bangladesh
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