MoneyLab | bill maurer

Mobile Money

By Nick Vieira, March 29, 2014

Bill Maurer moderated the fourth session of MoneyLab on mobile money. He introduced the topic as growing out of a grassroots movement in sub-Saharan Africa, when people who were using pre-paid mobile phones realized they could send airtime to each other via phones as an alternative currency, and as a mechanism of settling debts, amongst [...]

Bill Maurer: an anthropologist’s take on monetization

By armina, March 23, 2014

Bill Maurer began his session with a statement about the alternative currencies today: “It’s a wild west out there”. Of course, a lot of the emerging payment systems fail along the way. Looking a bit at the origin of alternative currencies, we see the 19th century’s references to the railroad systems. Terms such as “freight” [...]

Posts Tagged: bill maurer

Mobile Money

Bill Maurer: an anthropologist’s take on monetization