Technology is a fascinating thing. And it's almost impossible to grasp how far we've come in such a short while. Had you told me some 30 years ago that we'd be able to have face to face meetings via handheld devices, connecting us across oceans, I would probably have been fascinated, but also a bit sceptic about the realism in the proposal. Time and technology have of course put this proposed skepticism to bed.
Today, the world is mobile. And part of the beauty in this is that the world is actually mobile. It is not a phenomenon limited to certain, privileged parts of the world. Actually, some of the countries with the largest penetration in for instance using mobile paying methods can be found in Africa and Asia.
Kenya is one of the countries, where mobile technology and payment have leapfrogged traditional economies and is becoming the norm - in a survey handled by the Mobile Economic Forum, 93 percent of Kenyan respondents answered "yes" to having used mobile banking methods.
And one of the real wins here is that access to purchasing goods is now for everyone. Almost everyone has got a smartphone, and people are really using them to pay for things. Commodities of all sorts - even fresh water. Direct, on spot payment for the exact measure of water you need. Modern ICT-solutions (Information and Communication Technology) makes this possible. The mobile money system M-PESA is combined with water technology from Grundfos and knowhow from local water utility companies. Together, we bring fresh water to rural and suburban areas alike. Making it available for as many people as possible, avoiding bureaucratic bottlenecks.
On top of that, the water technology making this possible is actually green. The system providing the water runs on renewable energy sources as for instance solar power.
M-PESA actually just recently caught the eye of the famed CBS program, 60 Minutes in an interesting special looking into the innovative, Kenyan business. If you're interested, you can have a look here and see what the future of mobile money might look like. Today.
This post is part of a "Nordic Solutions" series produced by The Huffington Post, in conjunction with the U.N.'s 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris (Nov. 30-Dec. 11), aka the climate-change conference. The series will put a spotlight on climate solutions from the five Nordic countries, and is part of our What's Working editorial initiative. To view the entire series, visit here.