手机扶贫潜力无穷

    甚至在世界上最贫穷的地方，手机也已经变得无处不在。《财富》杂志(Fortune)独家获得的一份报告披露，研究人员正在利用这些设备收集的数据来解决第三世界的问题。

    这份由比尔和梅琳达•盖茨基金会(Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)与战略咨询机构笛卡儿公司(Cartesian)合作推出的报告称，从扩大银行服务的覆盖面到跟踪传染病的传播，分析移动数据有望从多个层面改善穷困人口的生活。

    报告执笔人尼朗特•古普塔表示，哈佛大学(Harvard University)和其他大学的研究促使盖茨基金会进一步分析了发展中国家的手机数据，以便相关发现能够从研究转入实施阶段。

    他说：“我们跟研究人员进行了深入交谈，我们认为他们正在从事的研究非常有趣，令人兴奋。”

    研究人员研究了撒哈拉以南非洲和亚洲的10个发展中国家，发现许多居民都把手机看成是生活必需品，为了支付电话费，宁愿节衣缩食。这些国家有超过60%的人口每天的生活费用不足2美元，但大多数人都拥有一部手机。例如，在尼日利亚和肯尼亚，67%的成年人拥有手机。在印度、印度尼西亚和博茨瓦纳，至少58%的成年人拥有手机。博茨瓦纳、肯尼亚和尼日利亚的许多人每天只能挣1美元，甚至更少，但其中超过一半人拥有一部手机。

    随着新数据的不断涌入，这份报告建议为这些数据开拓新用途，比如打造更好的灾难救济方案。例如，2010年海地大地震爆发后，几所大学通过观察手机基站和SIM卡的数据，来搜寻居民在地震发生后的踪迹。许多幸存者并没有去最近的“安全”地带，而是奔赴他们以前去过的地点。

    报告的另一位作者杰克•肯德尔表示，这些数据也可以用来追踪疾病。通过观测手机用户的移动模式，研究人员可以更好地理解疟疾等疾病的蔓延方式，从而有针对性地在特定区域展开救援工作。

    采集移动数据当然会引发隐私问题。这份报告的作者建议手机运营商删除所有可识别具体个人的信息，然后再把数据传送给研究人员。

    作者表示，手机数据具有改善发展中国家生存条件的无穷潜力，用途远远超出这份报告所列举的方式。笛卡尔公司战略咨询事务副总裁、这份报告的主要作者之一埃德•纳伊夫说：“真正的机会在于利用这些工具，更广泛地加以应用，这样就会带来更大的影响。”

    虽然盖茨基金会还没有宣布什么项目来利用这项研究得出的发现，但古普塔表示，相关项目正处于计划阶段，而联合国全球脉动(United Nations Global Pulse)是潜在合作伙伴之一。后者是联合国发起的一个项目，旨在应用大数据来解决人道主义问题。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    Cell phones have become ubiquitous even in the world’s poorest places. Now, researchers are using data collected by the devices to address third-world problems, according to a report provided exclusively to Fortune.

    The report, produced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in conjunction with strategy consulting firm Cartesian, argues that analyzing mobile data has the potential to improve the lives of the poor in many ways—from expanding access to banking services to tracking the spread of infectious diseases.

    Nirant Gupta, an author of the report, says research from Harvard and other large universities prompted the Gates Foundation to further analyze cell phone data in developing countries so that the findings could move from research to implementation.

    “As we talked to researchers, we thought they were doing really interesting and exciting things,” he says.

    Studying 10 developing countries across sub-Saharan African and Asia, the researchers found that many residents view cellular phones as a necessity, even cutting back on food purchases to pay their phone bills. Although more than 60% of people in the countries studied live on less than $2 per day, the majority of people there own cell phones. In Nigeria and Kenya, for example, 67% of adults own cell phones, while at least 58% do in India, Indonesia and Botswana. Even among people earning $1 a day or less, more than half own mobile phones in Botswana, Kenya and Nigeria.

    With the influx of new data, the report suggests new applications for it, such as creating better disaster relief programs. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, for example, several universities looked at data from cell phone towers and SIM cards to see where residents went after the quake hit. Instead of going to the closest “safe” zone, many survivors chose to go to locations where they had traveled to before.

    Jake Kendall, another author of the report, said the data could also be used in tracking diseases, for instance. By watching the mobility patterns of cell phone users, researchers can better understand how diseases like malaria spread and aim relief efforts at specific areas.

    Of course, mobile data collection raises issues of privacy. The report’s authors suggest that phone companies can scrub data of any personally identifiable information before releasing it to researchers.

    The data has endless potential to improve conditions in the developing world, far beyond the ways outlined in the report, the authors say. “The real opportunity is to take these tools and apply them more broadly. That would be where you’d make a larger impact,” says Ed Naef, vice president of strategy consulting for Cartesian, and one of the report’s lead authors.

    While the Gates Foundation has not yet announced projects that will implement the findings of the study, Gupta says that projects are in the works, including potential partnerships with the United Nations Global Pulse, a U.N. initiative to use Big Data for humanitarian purposes.