Guy Samuel interviewed yours truly about our little remittances startup a few months back for his Masters thesis in International Relations at Institut Barcelona.
Remit.ug is exemplary of the benefit that can be created when mobile telephony meets entrepreneurial spirit. Although the service is young, it shows high potential. Ruge and his associates have leveraged new technologies and services to overcome a challenge which affects millions of Ugandans at home and abroad. Importantly, this has been achieved on the basis of local knowledge: Ruge has applied his own experience, and has grown the project through direct dialog with members of the Ugandan diaspora. While imported technology has been employed, Remit.ug’s model is entirely new and unique to Africa, not an import from ‘developed’ countries.
You can read the whole thesis here (PDF), which includes case studies on iCow and M-Farm in Kenya.
