The Unprecedented Explosion of Smartphones in Myanmar

Outside the offices of an internet startup called nexlabs, a snarl of honking cars and rickshaws grinds to a standstill on a trash-strewn street lined with crumbling buildings. Inwards, however, the scene could be straight out of Silicon Valley.

Programmers in t-shirts and jeans tap away at laptops underneath posters exhorting them to “Innovate” and “Dance Like Crazy.” Local request for their smartphone apps and websites is exploding, and in the last twelve months they’ve inked marketing contracts with multi-nationals like Samsung Electronics Co. Contine reading →