Disruption OFF by Jones Terry

Author:Jones, Terry
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: N/A
Publisher: Terry Jones
Published: 2019-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Life doesn’t come with a remote. You’ve got to get up and change it yourself.”

—A Pinterest Post

After college I had the great good fortune to spend a year travelling around the world. It was so amazing to see how other countries approached things differently than we do in the US.

Having now been in 110 countries, I continue to keep my eyes peeled for differential innovation.

Visiting Africa for the seventh or eighth time recently, I was surprised to see solar panels on the huts in a rural town. A small solar panel is all you need to charge your phone, light LED lights, and even do a small amount of cooking.

Companies like M-KOPA provide solar at costs that save the average (and very poor) user $4 to $5 (KES) weekly on kerosene and phone charging.

It is a funny kind of back to the future. Edison pushed DC power strongly at the beginning of the electric age. Unfortunately, DC cannot be transferred over long distances. Nikola Tesla invented AC power and that allowed for long transmission lines and the developed world strung these lines (at great expense) everywhere. Solar power (which is DC) on every home eliminates the need for transmission lines and infrastructure and most importantly capital.

Similarly Africa has generally skipped over the need for stringing wires to provide phone service, and 93% of Africans have access to cell coverage (vs. 63% with piped water). This has allowed mobile banking company M-Pesa to capture 96% of households in Kenya.19 Their system doesn’t require a smartphone and now poor Kenyans not only have a way to pay but most have a savings account, something that was restricted to high-income residents until recently.

Internet access in India is being provided in some rural communities by the local bus as it drives through town. A few minutes of access a day is all most users require. Google, which is already providing Internet access at railroad stations, is looking to expand access via balloons, and SpaceX and others are racing to deploy thousands of low-altitude satellites to provide worldwide high-speed Internet.

My point is that the developed world spent trillions and took decades to develop the amazing infrastructure we depend on today. The developing world is simply skipping it. This could mean that over time things would move faster in the developing world than in the developed world.

It undoubtedly means they approach problems differently. M-Pesa lets anyone bank on a “dumb phone” – something no one in the US does. WeChat’s one billion users in China use one app for payments, as a government ID, to buy everything from groceries to cars to booking their doctor’s appointment.

As you scan your competitors and new technologies for disruptive forces, be sure that your radar screen includes the developing world; your next disruptor may come from “countries that skip.”

Contrary to what you might think, the developing world’s lack of resources is not a barrier to innovation.

Over the last few years I’ve been working for the US Department of State, helping startups around the world.

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