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<eva> Big news! Stellar is officially a http://FastForward.org|FastForward.org cohort! This means that we'll be getting weekly training and mentorship from tech companies like http://Google.org|Google.org, IndieGoGo, AirBnB, and Khan Academy. :):rocket::tada:https://twitter.com/StellarOrg/status/618574724382089216
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<eva> "When we talk about mobile money, we often confuse it with mobile payments -- things like Apple Pay, says Ahmed. "Those are not as transformative as mobile payments in Africa." You can find people who have lived in cities in Somaliland, where Ahmed is from, who haven't touched cash for months. "All of those transactions that used to take place within a cash setting, it is now possible to measure the GDP," he says.
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of gdp going through M-Pesa, a large part of the informal economy has switched to formal." The result of this is that the government has revised the country's GDP upwards."
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<johnicholas> Any suggestion about how to personally experience mobile money
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<johnicholas> I'm in the US, but I want to understand how it feels to use mobile money like in Africa
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<eva> an interesting thought! I'm not really sure, as someone who's very grounded in the US. I suppose one experiment could be to take out as much cash as you need for one month, and resolve not to touch any formal finance. Meaning no bank account, no credit card, no paypal, nothing like that.
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<eva> and see what kinds of options are available to you
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<eva> like if you need to send money to a friend, you'd need to use a money transfer service
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<eva> etc.
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<eva> that actually sounds super interesting ... cc @vanessa
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<eva> not saying that operating on cash in the US is the same thing as mobile money in Africa but I think it's a start.
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<davehopton> does sound interesting @eva … a blog post(s) in the making
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<eva> oh? @davehopton would love to read that when it's out!
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<davehopton> oops, I totally meant that I’d be super interested to read that experiment as a blog post
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<davehopton> but I suppose no reason why I couldn’t do it myself, other than laziness
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<eva> heh gotcha
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<eva> I'd be very down to write about that for Stellar, too. Just would require some thought, and potentially some people willing to try it out with m