GSMA Mobile for Development Seminar

Date: Friday, 13 June 2014
Time: 09.30 – 13.30 CST
Location: SNIEC, M42

Open to all attendees. Pre-registered attendees will have priority.
RSVP at [email protected]

This seminar aims to reach a wide audience and further educate mobile operators on the role the GSMA plays in mobile for development and demonstrate how these commercial solutions that are being developed can make an impact, through current initiatives in the region.

Our Mobile Money for the Unbanked programme is helping mobile operators and the financial industry collaborate to deliver affordable financial services that provide safety, security and convenience to millions of previously unbanked customers. Since the Mobile Money for the Unbanked programme was founded, the industry has increased in size five-fold, with over 100 mobile money deployments active in the world today – 80% of which are in developing markets.

Our Green Power for Mobile programme alone, through more than 24,000 live and planned base station deployments, will save over 422 million litres of diesel per year and 1.4 million tons of carbon emissions, while connecting 27 million rural inhabitants to the mobile network. We are also driving commercial mobile services in the key areas of health, agriculture and learning, while our mWomen programme is leading the reduction of the mobile phone gender gap.

Agenda

Speaker Biographies

		David Taverner is Senior Director of Digital Inclusion, a programme that has a goal to connect an additional 1 billion people to the mobile internet. David has worked in the GSMA since April 2008 and previously was the Director for the Green Power for Mobile, Mobile Enabled Community Services, Mobile for Development Intelligence, GSMA Intelligence & Mobile Entrepreneurship & Innovation initiatives.Previously, David worked as a strategy consultant at Accenture. David has a 1st class BSc in Management, Biology and Computer Science from University of Leeds.
		Matthew Guildford, Commercial Director, Telenor Digital Matthew Guilford is Commercial Director at Telenor Digital, the Internet services arm of Telenor Group, one of the world’s major providers of mobile communications. He is responsible for working with external partners and Telenor’s 13 business units to build new enterprises that leverage the company’s assets to improve the lives of its 160 million customers across Asia, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Prior to joining Telenor, Matthew served in the administrations of Chicago mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel as Assistant Commissioner and Head of Digital Excellence and Innovation.
		Darwin F. Flores, Community Partnerships Department, Head/VP, Smart CommunicationsFor the last ten years, Darwin has been leading Smart’s community engagement initiatives for the base of the pyramid communities in the Philippines. He heads the department responsible for developing ICT-oriented, socially relevant programs in the areas of education, health, disaster preparedness and response, environment and livelihoods. Before joining Smart Communications, Darwin was for ten years, at the helm of fair trade and environmental conservation programs in Southeast Asia and the Pacific for Oxford-based Oxfam UK-Ireland and Washington D.C.-based Conservation International. Previous to this, he was a political researcher in aid of national legislation for the Philippine Senate.
		Fionan McGrath, Disaster Response Consultant, GSMAFionán is a Disaster Response Consultant at the GSM Association. In this role, he supports mobile network operators as they develop network preparedness and resilience strategies and works to foster collaboration among all players in the disaster response field. Fionán’s career background is as a telecoms engineer and product manager and most recently he joined from the GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked team. Prior to that, he spent seven years working in the roaming and managed services domain for vendors, mobile operators and signalling providers including work in emerging markets in Africa, Asia and the South Pacific
		Catherine Highet, mWomen Paciic Manager, GSMACatherine is the Pacific Manager at the GSMA mWomen programme, focussing on building a healthy M4D ecosystem among MNOs, NGOs and other partners in this region. Prior to joining GSMA, she managed IREX’s Social Media |Social Action program, connecting NGOs with technology resources across the Middle East. She has also worked with Palestinian M4D company Souktel, using mobile to connect aid agencies with their beneficiary communities in East Africa, the Pacific and the Middle East. Catherine has previous experience in mobile financial services, having spent two years working on a cross cultural microfinance initiative in Jerusalem.
		Kyla Reid, Head of Disaster Response, GSMAAs Head of the Disaster Response Programme, Kyla is responsible for leading the mobile industry inimproving resilience and engaging in coordination initiatives that most effectively support citizens and humanitarian organisations on the ground following a crisis. Kyla joined GSMA in September 2010 as a member of the Mobile Health team in the Mobile for Development. Before joining the GSMA, Kyla worked as Lead Researcher and writer for the humanitarian website InsideDisaster.com and at the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Kyla has conducted field research across East Africa and has worked for a variety of NGOs and policy institutes focused on complex emergencies, HIV/AIDS and socio-economic development.