Hasta La Ideas

As we could learn from the example of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, a micro credit can allow a poor villager in a Third World country to buy for example a mobile phone and start making money from setting up a telephone service for his neighbors. One of the problems with the phone proliferation in the Third World, though, is access to power to charge the ever hungry phones. There are some crank-powered or solar chargers, and here comes a new take. The power-yoyo from Potenco. The device is the same that is fitted in the OLPC 100 dollar laptop (now USD 180:-, alas), but as a separate unit it could power mobile phones, LED lights and many other things. All for free, once the device is paid for. It works a bit like an oldstyle outboard motor or lawn mower; you pull the string to generate power. A minute of pulling should give 20 minutes of talk time on the mobile.brbr