Microfinance Focus, Nov 6, 2010: Grameen Foundation together with mobile technology provider, Qualcomm and Bakrie Telecom has launched the Application Laboratory in Indonesia (AppLab Indonesia) on Thursday to create a network of micro-entrepreneurs for adopting mobile phone-based business opportunities.

To ensure long-term support for this growing network, Grameen Foundation, Qualcomm and Bakrie Telecom, incubated PT RUMA, an Indonesian social enterprise. It operates as an implementing partner to help poor micro-entrepreneurs to first become electronic airtime resellers, and then to expand their businesses with new AppLab products and services that will further increase their income.

Over 300,000 unique customers have been served through PT RUMA’s rapidly growing network of more than 4,500 micro-entrepreneurs.  An estimated 47 percent of the micro-entrepreneurs who stay in the portfolio for more than four months have moved above the poverty line, and more than 90 percent of the businesses are owned by women.