Posted by Angela Rucker, USAID FrontLines

Read the latest edition of USAID’s FrontLines to learn more about how the Agency is engaging youth around the world and how it is embracing mobile technology. Some highlights:

Looking to young minds for new ideas to old development challenges is producing fresh solutions. Just ask the young woman who is helping save newborns in Malawi with a jerry-rigged aquarium pump.
They’re opening small businesses, building environmental awareness and learning the ins and outs of politics from the village council to Parliament. Through youth-led community groups, more than 700,000 of Kenya’s young people are preparing to become their country’s next generation of savvy citizens and influential leaders.

SaysChris Locke: “The last two or three billion people in the world to access the Internet will do it via mobile phone.” Locke is the managing director of GSMA Development Fund, the development arm of the world’s largest mobile industry association. Read what else he has to say about the evolution of mobile technology in the developing world.

Before mobile banking came to rural areas of the Philippines, customers might take as long as six hours to journey to a bank branch to conduct business. Now it takes minutes and only their fingers do the traveling.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

About FrontLines

Insights from Administrator Rajiv Shah

YOUTH

Elevating a Demographic on the Rise

In Community ‘Parliaments,’ Kenya’s Youth Find a Voice

Early Lessons Aim to End Rape Epidemic

The Idea Incubator: The Young Minds Leading USAID's Innovation Quest

• David Auerbach: The Business of Waste

• Jocelyn Brown: A Healthy First Breath for Malawi’s Newborns

• Alla Jezmir: Bringing Tanzania on the Grid

• Yashraj Khaitan: A ‘Micro’ Solution to India’s Major Energy Woes

Schools and Scholarships: Transforming Lebanon’s Education System for All

Liberia’s Future Land Experts

Montenegro’s Great Braille Equalizer

Girls in Front Row of Yemen’s New Education Drive

In a High-Tech World, Youth Map, Film and Text Positive Change

MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

Introduction: What’s Possible in Mobile

Big Choices on a Small Screen: Can Mobile Games Really Spark Change?

Conservation Texting

For Text-Savvy Filipinos, Mobile Banking Is a Crucial Bridge

Interview with Chris Locke, GSMA Development Fund Managing Director

Apps for Afghanistan

Your Voice: Mobile Technologies Helping to Fast-Forward Quality Education online extra