MUMBAI, India – Earlier this month we were stoked that one of our favourite Nokia services, Nokia Life Tools, officially touched down in India. Following its successful pilot scheme in Maharashtra, Life Tools has now officially launched via the Nokia 2323 classic and Nokia 2330 classic devices, and will be later become available on other Nokia devices and extend its reach to many more rural areas in India.
If you’re new to Nokia Life Tools, the concept is to deliver valuable and up-to-date information on the core topics of agriculture and education, providing rural communities without access to the internet, with timely information via SMS at a low cost. Perhaps the best example of this in practice is the agriculture tool that has been designed to deliver farmers with precise commodity prices on from a network of 291 local mandis (marketyards), meaning farmers don’t need to travel often long distances to the nearest town to arm themselves with these details, saving them time and money and enabling them to improve their quality of life.
We’ve gathered together a few initial reactions to the launch of Nokia Life Tools from a handful of Indian websites, so read on to see what others are saying, plus if you find any other reactions or want to voice your opinions, share them here as we’re keen to hear your thoughts.
MAHARASHTRA, India – We first brought you word of Nokia Life Tools back in November of last year (get the full lowdown), and here on Conversations we even selected it as one of our best services of 2008. Nokia Life Tools has been running as a pilot scheme in Maharashtra, India , and today sees the pilot phase officially come to an end. So now Nokia is taking stock of its encouraging findings as it readies for the full commercial launch of Nokia Life Tools in the first half of 2009, debuting on the Nokia 2320 and Nokia 2323.
Read on to find out how Nokia Life Tools received and how it was found to affect people living in rural communities in India. Continue reading>>
GLOBAL – Who would’ve thought that fish and buffalo would have a sweet tooth for mobile phones. In the past week we’ve been greeted with two remarkable phone survival stories – one about a Nokia-eating fish and a buffalo with a penchant for mobile handsets.
Read all about the fish that ate a Nokia 1600, and the buffalo that swallowed a phone.
Now vote for your favourite phone survival story. Will it be Nokia fish or buffalo? You decide!
INDIA – We wrote previously about Nokia’s recycling survey conducted last year, and Charlie picked up on it again with his Best of 2008 piece over the holidays. Now Nokia India has taken up the baton and launched an initiative to drive awareness of recycling old handsets across the country. 1300 Nokia care centres and priority dealers are being equipped with recycling bins to take back old devices, regardless of who made them, before being taken away to be disposed of properly.
NEW DELHI, India – Polar opposite to the other two handsets we picked as Best of 2008 in Products (the E71 and 5800 XpressMusic), the Nokia 1202 shook things up and innovated without breaking the technology barrier, much like Nokia Life Tools in the Services stakes.
No, instead here is a handset that ignited a hugely positive global response because it was proof that a company could build and sell an extremely capable device tailored to the needs of local communities in emerging markets for a relatively tiny cost – at 25 Euros, the Nokia 1202 is the cheapest phone Nokia has ever created. But perhaps even more significant was the fact that it was made to be shared by up to five people, as it features multiple phone books and time and pre-paid tracker, so if bought by a group in a small community it becomes a 5 Euro phone.
NEW DELHI, India – Recently we’ve witnessed the emergence of number of smart initiatives tailored towards local communities in emerging markets that push mobile innovation without the need for expensive new hardware or software. Built on existing technologies, services such as Nokia Life Tools and FrontlineSMS have proved that it’s possible to pioneer with even the most basic tools, such as text messaging.
INDIA – A little over a month ago we brought you word on Nokia Life Tools, a service that really struck a chord with us here on Conversations. It’s a smart tech-light solution tailored to benefit farmers and students in rural and remote communities in India and emerging markets – an information portal that uses simple SMS technology to equip locals with timely and valuable information on market prices for crops, English language learning resources, general knowledge content and more.
The Nokia Life Tools service was slated to begin as pilot scheme during the first half of 2009, debuting on the Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330 classic, but this week Nokia India has released a new sliver of mobile software called MeraNokia for the Nokia 2600 classic and the Nokia 1680 classic that offers what appears to be exactly that service.
We’re currently on the trail to connect the dots within Nokia and keen to find out more, but in the meantime read on to find out more on MeraNokia.
NEW DELHI, India – Many of us have been lucky enough to witness the Internet dramatically and sophisticatedly evolve in recent years in terms of mobility and its subtle integration into devices and services. Nonetheless, there remains a very real chasm between people in emerging markets, especially those in remote rural areas, and the unlimited tap of information available via an Internet connection.
NEW DELHI, India – Today Nokia unveiled a stable of new handsets tailored to emerging markets, but it’s the 1202 that really stood out for me. It almost goes without saying that affordability is a key aspect for everyone in any country, but it’s a factor that’s amplified in poorer and more remote areas of India and Africa, so it was hugely encouraging to see the Nokia 1202 was announced bearing a price tag of just 25 Euros, making it the cheapest handset the company has ever launched.
MUMBAI, India – Earlier this month we were stoked that one of our favourite Nokia services, Nokia Life Tools, officially touched down in India. Following its successful pilot scheme in Maharashtra, Life Tools has now officially launched via the Nokia 2323 classic and Nokia 2330 classic devices, and will be later become available on other Nokia devices and extend its reach to many more rural areas in India.
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