I am a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India, though I'm currently based in South Africa.
Contact me at jdonner at microsoft dot com.
I maintain a blog at my personal website, www.jonathandonner.com.
I'm a social scientist, with a background in Communication Research and Economic Development.
Previously, I was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Center for Global Health and Economic Development (CGHED), at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. I have also been a consultant with Monitor Company in Cambridge, MA, and with its spin-off, The OTF Group, where I worked on economic competitiveness projects in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. I have a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Communication Theory and Research
Projects
The Information Environment of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs)
Mobile-Phone Enabled Banking and Payments
Everyday mobile use in the developing world
2009
Jonathan Donner and Marcela Escobari, A review of the research on mobile use by micro and small enterprises (MSEs), in Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, IEEE, April 2009
Jonathan Donner, Mobile media on low-cost handsets: The resiliency of text messaging among small enterprises in India (and beyond) , in Mobile technologies: from telecommunications to media , pp. 93-104, Routledge, 2009
Molly Steenson and Jonathan Donner, Beyond the personal and private: Modes of mobile phone sharing in urban India, in The Reconstruction of Space and Time: Mobile Communication Practices, vol. 1, pp. 231-250, Microsoft, 2009
Jonathan Donner, Blurring livelihoods and lives: The social uses of mobile phones and socioeconomic development, in Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91-101, MIT Press, 2009
2008
Jonathan Donner, Katrin Verclas, and Kentaro Toyama, Reflections on MobileActive08 and the M4D Landscape, in Proceedings of the First International Conference on M4D, December 2008
Jonathan Donner, Rikin Gandhi, Paul Javid, Indrani Medhi, Aishwarya Ratan, Kentaro Toyama, and Rajesh Veeraraghavan, Stages of design in technology for global development, in Computer, pp. 31-41, June 2008
Jonathan Donner, Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature, in The Information Society, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 140-159, 2008
Jonathan Donner, Shrinking fourth world? Mobiles, development, and inclusion, in Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, pp. 29-42, MIT Press, 2008
Jonathan Donner, Nimmi Rangaswamy, Molly Wright Steenson, and Carolyn Wei, “Express yourself” and “Stay together”: The middle-class Indian family, in Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, pp. 325-338, MIT Press, 2008
Jonathan Donner and Camilo Tellez, Mobile banking and economic development: Linking adoption, impact, and use, in Asian Journal of Communication, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 318-332, 2008
2007
Jonathan Donner, M-Banking, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, September 2007
Jonathan Donner, Customer acquisition among small and informal businesses in urban India: Comparing face to face, interpersonal, and mediated channels, in The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, vol. 32, pp. 1-16, 2007
