AO: This blog post was based on a World Bank-funded research project that iHub Research conducted in 2013. The project, which was awarded to iHub after a competitive tender, helped to boost iHub Research's reputation and establish the legitimacy of the work we were doing. This specific blog post was written to clarify a finding from the project that was widely taken up by global and local media and heavily circulated: that those at the "bottom of the pyramid" were sacrificing on certain items in order to reload their mobile phones with credit. After this finding was discussed in an article by The Economist, I was contacted by many news agencies to further discuss this including on Kenyan TV. I think this is a good example where the research was able to debunk some assumptions about how Kenyans use mobile phone technology and why.
Tonny Omwansa, Angela Okune and Tim Kelly, "Blog post: "Understanding 'Foregoing' Behavior at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) in Kenya"", contributed by Angela Okune, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 6 July 2018, accessed 25 April 2024. http://www.stsinfrastructures.org/content/blog-post-understanding-foregoing-behavior-base-pyramid-bop-kenya
Critical Commentary
AO: This blog post was based on a World Bank-funded research project that iHub Research conducted in 2013. The project, which was awarded to iHub after a competitive tender, helped to boost iHub Research's reputation and establish the legitimacy of the work we were doing. This specific blog post was written to clarify a finding from the project that was widely taken up by global and local media and heavily circulated: that those at the "bottom of the pyramid" were sacrificing on certain items in order to reload their mobile phones with credit. After this finding was discussed in an article by The Economist, I was contacted by many news agencies to further discuss this including on Kenyan TV. I think this is a good example where the research was able to debunk some assumptions about how Kenyans use mobile phone technology and why.