Nancy White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is there any mechanism or organization that can accept individual funds > from any citizen of the world who would support the development? Sort of > a reverse microlending -- microinvesting?
Some groups in the U.S. have raised money for ICT projects around the world, and earlier this year one raised a huge amount from Silicon Valley tech. workers who came from S. Asia, primarily India. All this money will be directed to certain types of projects in the countries in that region, but not hardware development or commercialization of a prototype. However, a general individual to individual payment mechanism similar to Pay Pal or Billpoint, the system used by eBay, is not available for the whole world. Billpoint accept credit cards from 40 countries (which means most countries are left out). Since the 9.11 attacks a great deal of attention has been focused on the "halawa" informal banking system which is used by people in some Asian countries as well as those who have emigrated elsewhere and are sending money back home or are getting a loan. It bypasses the regular banking system, but that may change in the wake of call for more stringent rules for money transfer. Steve Cisler ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
