Delivered a short opening session to tech@state here in DC sharing the stage with many pioneers and bright-minds in the mobile money space. Video’s of all the talks can be found here.

Text and slides of my contribution is here.

I’m always interested in the stories, assumption and popular myths behind the numbers. For example pretty much every one of the ~5 billion cellular subscribers has the ability to send SMS but in practical terms – what percentage can? And what percentage does? Tomi Ahonen’s article on SMS adoption is a good example of the story behind the stats: illiterate consumers (both the popular definition of people who can’t read and write, plus those who are too young to be able to read and write); the ergonomically infirm e.g. people with arthritis; multiple SIM card users who channel text messages through one SIM card subscription because it makes social or economic sense. It’s good stuff.

Its going take at least week to digest what was a very condensed 36 hours on the ground – thanks to you all for the stimulated conversations and making the time so productive. One more State meeting then hotel <> taxi <> airport <> airport <> airport <> taxi <> home.