As the wireless industry in the United States moves ahead at a staggering and frantic pace-with new technology introduced practically every day-some Americans can’t image surviving without their mobile phones, e-mail accounts and personal digital assistants.
But while technology continues to march on, there are some people in the world being left behind. For these people, the simple act of having a long-distance conversation involves putting on shoes and walking to the next town over.
“That’s daily living in Latin America,” said Seth Heine. “There’s just this phenomenal need for telecommunications.”
Heine knows all about these people and their needs. While doing development work in Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil and Panama, he began to understand the communication problems people in Latin America face. He also came up with a way to help.
It’s a company called CollectiveGood International.
Heine, president of Collective-Good, founded the company in May of last year in an effort to bring the power of communications to the third world. The best way to do this, Heine found, was with wireless communications.
“It’s cheaper and it’s faster and it’s obviously more convenient” than wireline communications, he said. “The carriers down in Latin America have a demand for millions and millions of handsets.”
Setting up wireline communications takes up lots of money and manpower, but launching wireless communications is much more simple. With the installation of a few antenna towers, people who have never spoken on a telephone can quickly be pushed into the forefront of technology.
“All of a sudden they’ve joined the 21st century,” Heine said. “The amazing thing is that you can catch up immediately.”
Based in Atlanta, CollectiveGood works with various charities to collect used mobile phones and redistribute them to people-generally low-income people-in Latin America. The company’s refurbishing facility is in London, Ky. The plant employees four people-it’s a low-income area and the jobs are well paying, Heine said-and at last count the plant was pushing through about 2,000 used phones per month.
“We’ve only been at this a couple of months,” Heine said, but the demand for the phones is obvious and immediate. “Just as quickly as you get them, send them to me,” is the tune Heine said carriers are singing in Latin America.
According to CollectiveGood numbers, of the 500 million people living in Latin America, 375 million have never owned a telephone. In addition, the average yearly income for a citizen in Latin America is between $600 to $2,000. The demand for cheap mobile communications is intense.
“There’s an audience for that,” Heine said.
Heine said there are about 109 million mobile phones users in North America, and many of those most likely have more than one phone. Unwilling to throw out out-of-date phones, most people are letting them collect dust in closets or desks.
“We’ve created a mechanism that collects phones from the shelves of consumers in North America,” Heine said.
To get access to those phones, CollectiveGood has been wheeling and dealing with charity organizations across the nation to get the word out. The company’s biggest partner is the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere Inc., Care, a 50-year-old worldwide charity organization that operates in 127 countries. In addition, Collective-Good recently announced a deal with Advertising.com, which is helping to get CollectiveGood’s word out through Web site advertisements and mobile-phone alerts.
CollectiveGood’s charity pitch touches all the right buttons: The company provides communications to low-income people in third-world countries, helps to fund charities and is friendly to the environment. Mobile phones contain a variety of toxic chemicals, including cadmium, lead and mercury, Heine said. Phones that are unusable are disposed of with the help of The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp. and in accordance with local and national environmental standards.
CollectiveGood operates much like a not-for-profit charity organization, but in fact it is for-profit, Heine said.
“We found it was nearly impossible to fund a nonprofit and do it in short order,” he said.
Heine said he faced an overwhelming amount of paperwork and legwork to gain not-for-profit status, and CollectiveGood just couldn’t wait.
“It was just more expeditious” to be a for-profit company, he said.
Heine said because of the company’s for-profit status, some have labeled it “do-gooder capitalism.” However, Heine said he prefers the term “social entrepreneurism.”
