December 12, 2017

From The Economist:

A study of adult education in 160 villages in Niger by Jenny Aker of Tufts University and Christopher Ksoll of the University of Ottawa looked at whether weekly phone calls from researchers to teachers and their students would improve the quality of learning. Remarkably, those calls seemed to result in much higher grades for the students.

From The Economist:

What made mobile phones so much more important in Africa than in the rich world was that for hundreds of millions of people they were the first and only form of telecommunication available.

From The Economist:

“You cannot have a 21st-century economy without power and connectivity,” says Erik Hersman, a founder of several startups in Kenya. “But if you have those, you can do almost anything else.”

From The Guardian (Ian Rankin on "The book I wish I’d written"):

Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Such a complete and engaging world.

From The Guardian (Ian Rankin on "The book I most often give as a gift"):

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.