The beldi smartphone - Morgan Segui at TEDxCasablanca

As an industrial designer, cultural engineer, and graduate of ENSCI-les ateliers, Morgan has always been wary of 'stuff' and consumer goods, preferring the design of international cultural events for French embassies in Kazakhstan and Morocco to the design of objects. More recently, he was involved in a successful start-up dedicated to farmers and 'committed stomachs'. Today, he is trying to come to an arrangement with stuff ...

Well, here we are,
in Casablanca, in 2050.

Casa has become the world capital
of fair trade electronic production.

Everywhere in Morocco, some small tin,
copper and silver artisanal mines

provide small green companies

what they need to produce
fair trade electronic parts.

Most of this fair trade parts production

goes into building what is now
a well-known Moroccan specialty,

the "beldi" smartphone!
(Laughter)

"Beldi", as they say in Morocco.

To talk about healthy and tasty
farm produce,

produced locally in small villages,

usually around the big cities.

So, our "beldi" smartphone is
a fair trade smartphone

as it is the fruit of -- I'll put this down --

as it is the fruit of an economic activity
at the service of the men developing it.

An economic activity at the service of
the environments where this activity happens.

Our "beldi" smartphone is also
a pacified smartphone,

as we'll see it serves basic,

simplified use.

It serves basic mobile web use

And it's also a phone offering
connectivity that is well-thought-out,

well-controlled and non-intrusive.

It's not the sort of phone
that will disturb you

while you're thinking at work

or during your shared moments
with friends and family

Everything is designed to leave you alone
in the real moments of your life.

But to be fair trade right to the tip of the aerial,

the beldi smartphone is sent to
Europe, America or Asia,

on small container sailboats.

A cooperative start-up run
by artisanal sailors.

Back to 2012 : tonight, let's imagine together

what a beldi smartphone prototype
might look like.

To be respectful of the environment,
there are two main levers:

produce less raw materials --
use less raw materials

and produce less waste.

So we need much longer-lasting,
sustainable devices,

The beldi smartphone is made
to last a lifetime.

So it can be repaired and modified

along with the 2G, 3G
network standard changes etc...

But let's look at the basis of our telephone.

Around a bistable ink screen -

that's the black and white screen
of the early ebook readers.

It doesn't light up, it uses almost no battery,

we add a text keyboard

and an aerial to it : 2G, 3G

that we can change once 3G
has completely disappeared.

A microphone, and an ear piece for voice use.

With these simple tools,

we'll be able, of course,

to phone, send and receive text,

send and receive vector pictures,

these are very light digital pictures,

used in online maps and plans.

With these tools, we'll even be able

to read and check our emails,

all the messages,
as long as they are text,

SMS, tweets, Facebook messages - text only.

And of course,
access all the world knowledge

available on wikis, or the press.

What is missing are the plans and maps
for the instruction manuals.

Those uses seem simple, basic,

but still they allow you to

to study, to build or run a company,

to find the love of your life,

to buy train tickets,

to find a couch to spend the night when traveling,

and why not,

to make a revolution!

So why does the invention of such a phone
matter so much?

Well, I think that I, like you,

am of a generation

for which electronics are a
wonderful tool for world change,

for improving the world
from a social and environmental angle.

Wind turbines and solar panels
produce the cleanest electricity.

All over the world, as in Morocco,
low-energy lighting systems

connected to solar panels and batteries

allow electricity to be brought

to the 1/5 of the world's households
lacking access to the grid

and which use small oil lamps
to light up their homes at night,

resulting in burns,
lung problems and fires.

Finally, the magic threesome: mobile phones,
blogs and social networks

allow the exchange of information

on topics that are not addressed
by traditional media:

pollution, corruption, police violence, and so on.

So yes, electronics and all these systems,
all these devices

are fantastic tools for improving
the world socially

and environmentally.

Unfortunately, the production
of these components

is sometimes harmful for men,
women and the environment.

Giant open cast mines

polluting air and water.

Extremely low wages in electronics assembly

coupled with overproduction of devices
and fast obsolescence.

In France, we get a new phone
every 18 months

and a new laptop every 3 or 4 years.

Those devices will end up swelling the piles
at unauthorized electronic waste dumps -

usually in Africa or Asia.

Imagining a fair trade electronics industry,

from mine to smartphone,
is now a matter of urgency.

An industry concentrating on craftsmanship,

an industry that will allow
local economies to develop

if by any chance
there's ore under our feet.

So let's bring to the table

universities, NGOs, local authorities,

entrepreneurs,
telephone service providers and investors

so that together,
they can start preparing

tomorrow's fair trade electronic industry, right now.

Obviously, not every ore
used in electronics is available in Morocco.

So we could get our supplies

- via our small container sailboats from
artisanal sailor cooperatives -

from other countries producing
fair trade electronics:

Mongolia, Afghanistan,
the Democratic Republic of Congo

and why not Ghana, which has one
of the largest

electronic waste dumps in the world.

Clearly, the production of electronics
in small quantities

by craftsmen would be
a little more expensive.

And this is where we come back
to our good "beldi" smartphone.

Proud to be part of the development
of the areas in which it is being produced,

sustainable, and made to last a lifetime,
it opens up a market.

A market for electronics that are slightly more costly to produce.

And in this way, it becomes the ambassador
for the supply of fair trade electronics to the general public.

So when I present this project, this phone,

I am told that it runs counter to progress,

that it runs counter to
what people expect of their phones.

I have asked myself a question,
and I am asking you the same one tonight.

Do we all need all of this?

HD photos and videos,
super-powerful processors,

permanent connectivity?

Let me show you some examples
that got me thinking.

A 2011 smartphone is twice as powerful
as all the computers

used by NASA in 1969 to land
Apollo 11 on the moon. (Laughter)

It seems a well-worn example.

Today, on Mars, the Curiosity robot,

will be near-autonomous for 2 years.

It will dig, analyze,
and look for signs of life

with 4 times less power
than any current smartphone.

But let's come back to Earth, in California,

where the executives of the biggest web companies
in Silicon Valley are spending a fortune

sending their kids to computer-free schools.

The curriculum includes: hiking, astronomy,
building a solar oven,

philosophy, theater - maybe one day
they will be brilliant at making TED talks.

That's how tomorrow's American elite is being educated:

without computers, but well-connected
to Earth and humankind.

Even closer to us,

on the internet, a Slow Web movement is
getting ready to emerge,

like some online journals

that are betting on publishing just
one article per week,

or even per month.

The article is extremely well written

and it gives users time to

read it, leave comments, share it,
find out more,

which gives rise to thinking
outside of current affairs

about social issues,

as you can see here.

So less power,

less connectivity,

simplified uses -

to me it's anything but
a return to the candle.

It's simply prioritizing the power of ideas,

the power of human relationships

and setting the mere power
of processors aside for a while.

Earlier on, the word "eccentric" could be heard.

Perhaps this may seem a little eccentric or out of place.

My feeling is rather that the world is ready to
welcome this sort of project.

Projects featuring fair trade mines,

which participate in the economy
of small villages in which they are located.

Phones that last a lifetime

and will not add to the pollution at
the world's big electronics dumps.

A few figures:

Fair trade farming and produce:

their market share has
multiplied by 17 over the past 10 years.

Over the same period of time,
the turnover of organic farming

has risen from 15 billion dollars a year
to 60 billion dollars a year.

There's every reason to think that
consumers of fair trade or organic products

will soon demand that their smartphone
be just as fair as their coffee or their chocolate.

A few months ago in London,
on the stage at TEDxExeter,

Bandi Mboubi told us
how much coltan extraction --

coltan is an ore

needed to manufacture mobile phones --

how much coltain mining brought his country

-- the Democratic Republic of Congo --

nothing but misery, pollution and violence.

So if the world seems ready,

it seems to me that this is just as true of Morocco.

In Casablanca, the fifth organic store
has just opened.

And 10-year-old children
want to put gardens on rooftops --

The blogosphere and the tweetosphere are driven
by internet users

yearning for social, societal
and environmental progress.

An online journal you probably know,

like TalkMorocco has chosen
to publish, just once a month,

a collaborative report dealing with
major social issues

enabling a discussion aimed at
building a still fairer,

still more equitable Morocco.

For 3 years, on the stage of the Moroccan TEDx

free spirits and bold entrepreneurs
have been celebrated.

Morocco is developing its green city project,

a city project focused on a University
dedicated to sustainable development.

A partnership has just been signed
with the Ecole des Mines in Paris.

And talks are underway

with MIT - the major American institute for technological research.

And finally, Morocco has many of the ores

necessary for the production of electronics.

So Morocco, like France,
Mongolia, Afghanistan

or the Democratic Republic of Congo
are countries with fiery youth,

hungry for social
and environmental progress.

Together, they own leading universities,

quality ores,

daring entrepreneurs,

and hopefully, visionary operators and investors.

So now it's up to us -- to all of us -- to make it happen,

to activate, to demand a fairer electronics industry.

One that is fairer to men, women and environments.

Fairer from the small craftsman in the country
to the smartphone shops of our city centers.

Let's meet again in 2050.
Thank you. (Applause)