In the early 1990s, Iqbal Quadir, a Bangladesh-born MIT professor and entrepreneur, had the idea that cellphones could be used to help the very poorest people. For Bangladesh, a densely populated country strangled by frequent natural disasters and a serious lack of infrastructure, Iqbal saw communication technology as an essential resource. His vision: to help village entrepreneurs, backed by micro-loans, establish cellphone leasing businesses that retail phone services to their surrounding communities. Ten years later, with hundreds of "village phone ladies" in operation, did Iqbal's model for lifting developing nations out of poverty pay off?

Originally produced as part of the CBC television program "CBC News Sunday".