Distance education via SMS technology in rural Bangladesh

Cell-phone SMS-Short Message Service-is helping bridge the Digital Divide in developing countries around the world. Beginning in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on Earth, and now extending into many other Third World countries, SMS offers synchronous and asynchronous interactive communication in situations where previously there was no communication at all, as between people in jungle villages and government or nongovernmental organization offices in major cities. SMS offers a wide variety of applications from public health to e-commerce. This article describes recent developments mainly in data collection and distance education.