Innovation and scaling of ICT for the bottom-of-the-pyramid

Scaling represents successful diffusion that ensures sizeable impact and earnings from information and communication technology (ICT) innovations in emerging markets. Practice can still be shaped by dualistic views-innovation vs diffusion, pilot vs scale-up, lead firm vs other actors, technical vs social. Synthesising the literature that challenges these dualities, this paper creates a systemic perspective that is particularly appropriate for scaling of ICT to bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) markets. That perspective is then instantiated through the case study of a successfully-scaled ICT innovation that has reached millions of poor consumers: the Kenyan m-money system, M-Pesa.