The Legatum Center at MIT put on a conference last week on entrepreneurship in emerging markets. I’m not overly optimistic about the planet’s prospects, but I left more hopeful than I came: mix a lot of creative energy with good technology and a sense of purpose, and as a species we just might contrive to live long and prosper.

A case in point is Sproxil, a Nigerian start-up which presented its method for using scratch-off labels and SMS to ensure the legitimacy of a drug at the point of sale. Drug counterfeiting is a huge problem in the developing world. Given desperate need and loose regulatory oversight, it should not be surprising that there is a major business in supplying counterfeit or substandard drugs to pharmacies and other outlets in Asia and Africa.

• Just how major is difficult to say, as with most illegal activities, but in 2009 Nigeria’s food and drug regulator estimated that 17% of the drugs sold in the country were counterfeit. A Nigerian audience member at Sproxil’s presentation gave anecdotal confirmation: in his section of Lagos, knowledgeable people get prescription drugs from only one pharmacy, preferring it even to hospital dispensaries, because it is known to deal only in legitimate product. 
• Of course, the cost is not just monetary. Sproxil’s CEO, Ashifi Gogo, cited an International Policy Network estimate of 700,000 annual deaths due to counterfeit tuberculosis and malaria drugs.

Sproxil works with pharmaceutical manufacturers to place a unique identifying code in a scratch-off label on each package. At the point of purchase, the customer scratches off the label covering, sends a free SMS with the code to Sproxil, which checks the submitted code against its database and sends a return text indicating whether or not the drug is legitimate.

• mPedigree, in neighboring Ghana, has a similar system. Murky layers of acrimony cover the relationship between the two organizations, and a probably minor further complication comes from a patent infringement claim floated by someone apparently affiliated with an IT training school in Kenya.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that a very simple mobile technology can now be used in a straightforward manner to address a serious problem that affects the well-being of millions. As I say, I’m marginally more hopeful.

• We are now seeing a huge rebound of criticisms about customer service, implementation and execution, moaning and complaining for existing t-mobile customers who have to pay more than a new customer to get a cool device and strong complaints from developers about availability of SDK and support.
•  Naturally, the questions about Google's ability to execute on direct sales are being raised but these shall pass very quickly in our view.

• Consensus is that Nexus will be successful by high end tier Smartphone levels (single digit volumes in 2010 but upside potential when it rolls out beyond TMO in US and to more open markets in Europe). Nexus is likely to sell more through operator channels than direct overall. Handset volume though is not the metric by which Google will measure Nexus success nor should operators as Nexus sales are a means to an end.  If Google is successful and Nexus ends up driving usage and value for operators, they will support it with subsidies.  Otherwise, operators can passively watch Google evolve its own-branded offering with little to lose. Tier One handset vendors (SAM, LG) may have the most to lose as Google’s marketing muscle and brand coupled with compelling devices and experiences will be a strong competitor for Operator slots, subsidy dollars.

• Handset revenues and profits are a nice to have for Google. Key to their success and long term ambition is too boost the mobile browsing ecosystem. More open devices capable of browsing/search/maps from Google or others is positive for Google.  Google needed to update and get close to parity in terms of an engaging, fun, easy browsing UI with competitive links to key apps like maps, media etc and this device achieves that goal. Google is great at creating a buzz and the media is ready to talk about something other than Apple.

• Google Nexus and indeed the whole Android approach is not about controlling/owning the user (contrast this with Apple). Google’s key metric is advertising revenue. Google's vision is well publicized: the browser is how they will deliver services, even on mobile, and apps are a stop-gap measure as far as Google's strategic vision is concerned. Google is banking on HTML 5 as their solution to fragmentation but we believe they are drinking too much of their own coolaid here and underestimating the importance of apps. Google’s key goal is to increase eyeballs and advertising.

• Some key elements that have not been addressed which we believe are key in Google’s future evolution and will be key to watch relate to Voice and what Google does its Gizmo5 acquisition to push Google Voice into a full VoIP proposition. This is where Telcos should be most worried and where we have yet to see all the pieces positioned on the battlefiled.