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I recently had a blinding flash of the obvious. Much of the social sector is ignoring a vast, powerful layer of infrastructure that can help us all achieve our goals of creating prosperity for hard working, low income Americans: the nearly ubiquitous mobile phone. In places like Bangladesh and Kenya, incredibly valuable innovation is helping connect the poor to the financial mainstream by leveraging mobile phones. Grameenphone is a fascinating, bold example of this.

The potential for mobile technology all became crystal clear for me recently - even if it was a blinding flash of the obvious. In January, I took a two week learning sabbatical to Asia, funded through the Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, where I visited a number of nongovernmental organizations in Hanoi and Manila. I visited outstanding groups like the East Meets West Foundation in Vietnam, and the Knowledge Channel Foundation in the Philippines. Perhaps it was being around the visionary leaders of these groups – John Anner at East Meets West, and Rina Lopez-Bautista at the Knowledge Channel – that helped me understand what an opportunity we have.

Asia is light years ahead of the US in the way people there use mobile phones. I experienced this myself, buying a phone. I got a sim card for my phone when I arrived in Manila and it was loaded with features, including options to make payments to other network users.

In a visit with the Philippines Central Bank, I learned that 10% of the Philippines GDP comes from remittances, much of it sent through mobile phone networks.

Some mobile phone analysts believe that all virtually all Americans will have a mobile phone by 2013. The ubiquity of cell phones among Americans represents a highly underutilized infrastructure to leverage for prosperity. EARN will be focusing our collective intelligence on how to “cultivate our own garden”, to make it even easier for our clients to save, and hope others will join us in finding ways to innovate in this exciting area of opportunity.