Sponsor animals through your mobile phone.

People who regularily read this blog know that my family loves to visit zoos. In some of the Belgian zoos people can become godfather of a certain animal. Depending on the animal they pay a certain fee and then their name or company name gets displayed, for a year, on the cage of the animal they are sponsoring.

Although we visit a lot of zoos I am not sponsoring one particular animal, but still I've been thinking about how I could implement a system that I call "godfather for a day". With this system people would be able to sponsor an animal they like, for a small amount of money. E.g. today I am passing the cages of the koala bears and I would like to sponsor them for 5 euros. On the cage you can find an RFID-tag, you swipe your GSM over it and 5 euros are taken from your account at your service provider. There is no hastle, and you don't have to type in a phone number are whatever. The only thing you have to is set the amount of money you want to give. And when I leave the zoo, I see my name appearing on a ticker tape above the exit gates: Jan godfather for one day of koala Chico. I think this would really give me a good feeling when going home.

You can do the same thing with buying a coke from a vending machine, buy parking space,... all these small things you do every day. Maybe we can mash the system up with Google maps so you can see where you spend your money during the day.

Your mobile phone you use today can be turned into an RFID capable reader with a special SD card, read the following link for a report on CNN: Link to CNN.com - Your cell phone is so money - Jul 28, 2006

Tags: RFID mobile phone GSM micro payment Google Google map zoo SD card