Wednesday, July 20, 2005

G-nius The search for the great G-Cash Idea! - Bringing Philippine schools into the M-commerce era

Saw this via ka edong's blog. This could be a great opportunity to harvest fresh ideas for m-commerce. The criterias are:

- Originality (uniqueness and differentiation from competition/ other products) – 40%
- Business impact (market significance, cost saving/ profit maximization, feasibility) – 40%
- Social impact (alignment with Globe values, impact on nation-building) – 20%

The best gets to keep 1M in cash/G-Cash!

If I were a student what kind of G-Cash idea would I come up with? hmmmnn...

You can't use G-Cash to bribe your Professor since there would be an electronic trail. Same goes for other under the table transactions so ubiquitous in your campus life. This means we have to think of an idea with a bit of social impact. On the other hand it could be ideas that can somehow lessen those not so good practices inside the campus.

Maybe G-Cash could be a great tool for those PTA contributions. One account per PTA group. Parents could pay conveniently and perhaps be entitled to a verifiable copy of the account transactions. So that everybody knows where did all those PTA contributions really go.

During my student years the "paluwagan" system was a great way to save and earn. It can also sometimes help fellow students who suddenly find themselves financially handicapped. Applying G-Cash to that "paluwagan" system wouldn't be a bad idea either. And of course it could also be applied to facilitate micro-payments for student loans.

Book recycling was something I wish were available during those tosterone driven years. When school year ends, lots of textbooks are wasted and not re-used when in fact it can be sold or given away for the next batch. I could imagine an application where a student can submit the list of old books available for sale (hopefully cheaper than a new one) or to be given away for free. Then another student can query for a book title in the database, if there is a matching one he can pay or reserve via a payment gateway (could be G-Cash or Smart Money or _______). I guess this one meets the criterias, though not necessarily m-commerce specific.

Good luck to the participants! Hooray for the Filipino Youth!

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