The power of the mobile phone

The mobile phone is a powerful tool for social change in developing countries. Today, Karim Khoja - CEO of Roshan, Afghanistan's largest mobile provider - visits the University to discuss how telecommunications can spark economic growth and social development. Just as railways opened up vast continents to development, commerce and progress in the 19th and early 20th centuries, mobile technology today is a catalyst for development. Its power can be harnessed for the greater good, which is needed more than ever in Afghanistan, a country devastated by decades of conflict and tangled in the struggle to rebuild. Roshan, now a leading telecommunications company, saw this as an opportunity to build infrastructure, to bring the benefits of wireless telecoms to Afghanistan, while contributing to the nation's reconstruction and socio-economic development. Karim Khoja served in senior management positions in national and multi-national telecommunications companies for more than fifteen years. He has extensive experience in nurturing start-up businesses from infancy through development, and has led several GSM start-up companies into becoming major market players.