-setting organization, announced today a new Grand Challenge for Carbon Manna© project developers worldwide to provide one handset for every school-age child of families enrolled in cell-phone-based Carbon Manna© carbon-offset monetization programs. Starting with the oldest child, profits realized by each family from their produced carbon offsets should be used to buy low-cost handsets that include a built-in calculator, keyboard, LED flashlight, and FM radio (already a common feature in mobile phones sold in Africa today).

"In contrast to other announced programs featuring intractably expensive devices, a 'One Cell Phone per Child' goal is patently tenable, and an appropriately designed solar-powered handset serves many of the same educational functions in a much more portable and theft-proof package. Whether using push or pull technologies, micro-education initiatives based on the cell phone are the only currently actionable strategy for educating the Bottom Billion children intellectually shackled in the basement of pharaoh's pyramid," remarked David Palella, Founder of Carbon Manna Unlimited.

"The asymmetrically wealthy in the Developed World habitually underestimate not only African cell-phone penetration rates and cellular-signal coverage, but also the educational, public healthcare, and personal-safety functionality of a simple cell phone with built-in torch," said Geoffrey Kiringa, President of Carbon Manna Africa Ltd. in Nairobi, Kenya. He further observed: "In the case of newer handsets featuring FM radios, combined with the standard SMS (short message service) capability of all current phones, even simple handsets with low direct manufacturing costs of $15-20 offer children in Africa a hall pass to savannahs of knowledge, especially very poor children unable to attend schools."

Dr. Hong Ma, Executive Director of Carbon Manna Unlimited, also noted: "Our proprietary, cell-phone-based Carbon Micro-PROFIT-Sharing System provides a sustainable, carbon-markets-based financial engine for subsidizing or completely funding the purchase price of low-cost handsets in the Developing World, in stark contrast to all other Child empowerment programs that rely excessively on self-limiting charity and/or government subsidies to buy much more expensive and power-intensive electronic devices. Thus, the mobile money transfer-enabled handset in Africa is now not only an ATM and bank, but will also become the public library, the school and teacher, and an economic lucky charm of hope for poor children."

Dr. Sergey O. Sablin, a Board Member and major benefactor of the Carbon Manna© organization worldwide, encapsulated the announcement by saying: "Once again Carbon Manna's quantum innovation and revolutionary self-funding 'micro' paradigms offer the prospect of accelerating the emancipation of millions of poor families in Africa from pandemic poverty and ignorance. I am very honored to be affiliated with Carbon Manna© and to contribute materially to its success."

More details about the benefits of Carbon Manna's "One Cell Phone per Child" Grand Challenge may be found at this blog entry from November 2008:

"One Cell Phone per Child / The Cell Phone is the School"

http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com/2008/11/one-cell-phone-per-child-cell-phone-is.html

Information Source:    Marketwire

Images courtesy of www.carbonmanna.org/