BANGLADESH

The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh was among the first in the world to offer micro credit to poor communities to help them develop small businesses. The bank's recent cell phone initiative expects to put a cell phone in some 45,000 villages, giving residents access to communications for the first time.

In rural Bangladesh, we meet a woman who has become a successful local telephone operator. She is about to pay off her loan for her phone, meaning everything she earns will now be profit.

The next phase of the communication project involves the establishment of an experimental Village Computer and Internet Program (VCIP), which will allow people to use e-mail at a fraction of the cost of a phone call. If the program is successful, farmers will be able to check prices, and people can communicate with family and loved ones and create business contacts.

On our visit, we observe computer classes, and watch as a woman e-mails her husband working in Kuwait, and a 73-year-old man e-mails his son studying for his Ph.D. in Britain.

We also watch as farmers scrutinize a list of wholesalers in the capital city. We hear them discuss ways they could deal directly with the wholesalers and not give away so much of their profits to the middlemen brokers.

		Professor Muhammad Yunus, director and founder of the Grameen Bank, explains his organization's program. Quicktime
		Professor Yunus explains how the Grameen Phone Company helps bring phones to parts of Bangladesh that have never had such technology. Quicktime
		Professor Yunus comments on people's ability to accept technology that they find useful. Quicktime

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