What is this project about?

The Mobile Business at the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) project focuses on the sector's most-rapidly-developing business opportunities in Kenya and Vietnam. Participating companies are offered a unique opportunity to initiate business activity in the BOP market - people who have the world's lowest incomes - or to strengthen their existing business operations. The Mobile BOP project is aimed at Finnish companies who have knowledge and skills in different mobile technologies, products, services and solutions.

The project's objective is to create a Finnish mobile cluster which targets the BOP market, and whose strength lies in creating innovative applications for developing markets. At the same time, Finpro and the participating companies will develop down-to-earth tools for benefiting from business opportunities in such markets.

The Mobile BOP project helps Finnish companies operating in the mobile sector to acquire new business knowledge, and to create contacts and network in the target countries (i.e. Kenya and Vietnam). The project framework also provides a guide to special features of the BOP market and specific business challenges, as well as funding alternatives offered by the World Bank.

Schedule

The project was launched in November 2010 and will continue until June 2011. Funding is partly being provided by the Finnpartnership programme, and there is close co-operation with a related project created in a partnership between the World Bank's InfoDev programme, Nokia and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

Further information

Further information on Mobile BOP membership and related activities can be obtained from Eeva Nuutinen:

eeva.nuutinen(a)finpro.fi
Tel. +358 40 3433317