Great story from the BBC on how Africa is pioneering the use of mobile banking. Award for most honest quote goes to Mark Pickens of the World Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). "There's a lot of excitement, but very little understanding what's going on."  

Sounds like a good description of a lot of what's gone on in international economic development in the last 10 years or so -- as a mobile computing and communications revolution that was not predicted by and is not understood by the international development community is really upending old ideas about economic development and especially about how technology can play a role. And one of the reasons it has the development community in a tizzy is the very fact that it is not a product of the development community, nor is it under the control of the development community.