A Phone Is a Cow: How Pioneers of the Mobile Revolution Helped Millions Lift Themselves Out of Poverty

Author:   Philip E. Auerswald ,  Bengt Holmström
Publisher:   Georgetown University Press
ISBN:  

9781647127107


Pages:   290
Publication Date:   02 June 2026
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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A Phone Is a Cow: How Pioneers of the Mobile Revolution Helped Millions Lift Themselves Out of Poverty


Overview

The untold stories of a generation of pioneers who brought the mobile revolution to global majorities worldwide Far more than a phone, today's mobile is a powerful handheld computer embedded within a global communications network—and accessible to nearly everyone, everywhere. Achieving technological inclusion at this scale required both science-based inventions and opportunity-seeking innovations; the structure of standards and the adaptability of startups; the resources of the world's greatest corporate research lab and the persistence of a generation of entrepreneurs. Philip Auerswald relates the epic tale of the mobile phone's transformation from an inaccessible urban luxury to an indispensable global necessity. The book conveys the untold stories of determined innovators who brought the mobile revolution worldwide. Collectively, their work has had a decisively greater impact on the lives of most people on the planet than the activities of Silicon Valley titans usually featured in the books that line airport bookshelves. In the stories of these market pioneers, we see replicable processes for bringing frontier technologies to excluded populations by combining tenacity with empathy and creative foresight. A Phone Is a Cow will draw readers in with the patterns that connect history, economics, technology, sociology, ethics, and daily lived experience—and provide a richer understanding of the long-term trends that matter most.

Full Product Details

Author:   Philip E. Auerswald ,  Bengt Holmström
Publisher:   Georgetown University Press
Imprint:   Georgetown University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.567kg
ISBN:  

9781647127107


ISBN 10:   1647127106
Pages:   290
Publication Date:   02 June 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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Author Information

Philip E. Auerswald is a professor at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government; cofounder and coeditor of the journal Innovations; and the founding board chair and president of the National Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He has written numerous books, including The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Economy (2012). Bengt Holmström, a Finnish economist and Nobel Laureate, is the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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