in the developing world, where the mobile phone market is growing phenomenally, and where nearly a third of the population is illiterate, cheap laptops may not be the best answer.

A cheap phone with Web access and locally relevant applications may be a better driver for bringing the developing world online. Phones are much simpler to use, allow people to leverage voice as a preferred means of communication and are certainly easier and safer to carry.

It would only seem good sense to build on the current mobile explosion in developing regions, leapfrogging the PC. By offering enhanced cell phone devices — equipped with simple-to-use productivity and education tools — we may be able to reach many more people much faster than current PC digital inclusion efforts allow.

One BlackBerry Per Child may sound like a ludicrous notion, but so did a global distribution of cheap laptops just a few short years ago.