BSL update

Inc. magazine profiles TED speaker, Herman Chinery-Hesse's latest company BSL, covered earlier:

When BSL launches this fall, it will let African entrepreneurs easily sell their products online and accept payments via mobile phone. Such transactions are extremely difficult in a country in which computers are rare and in which PayPal doesn't operate. If Chinery-Hesse can sign up enough merchants and get enough people making payments with the service, he could drastically improve the lives of African craftspeople by giving them access to global markets. "This system is going to allow someone living in a village who makes 20 sweaters a week to export them at $10 a sweater," he says. "That's $200 a week!" It also promises to put Chinery-Hesse at the center of African commerce and make him exceedingly rich...[continue reading]