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Maker Spaces vs. COVID-19: How the Pandemic Is Bringing the Small Manufacturing Revolution to the Development Sector
When COVID-19 first struck, it soon became apparent that there wasn’t enough personal protective equipment (PPE) to go around. As Kuldeep Bandhu Aryal and Nishat Tasnim at BRAC point out, this has resulted in price gouging and acute scarcity, in Bangladesh and other developing (and developed) countries. They explore BRAC's innovative solution to this problem: collaborating with maker spaces and other small manufacturers to produce PPE locally and affordably.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Technology
- Tags
- COVID-19, manufacturing, scale
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COVID-19 Is Accelerating Digital Banking Across the Globe: Here’s How It Will Impact Bangladesh
COVID-19 has fast-tracked the adoption of innovative tools and technologies by the global banking sector. As Jakirul Islam at Bank Asia points out, this has already led to an increase in digital banking, as customers move away from branch-based banking due to pandemic lockdowns. He explores some popular features of digital banks, and discusses their potential impact in Bangladesh.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance, Technology
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YC-Backed Cashfree Raises $35.3 Million for Its Payments Platform
Cashfree, an Indian startup that offers a wide-range of payments services to businesses, has raised $35.3 million in a new financing round as the profitable firm looks to broaden its offering.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Billionaire Bezos Backs Start-up in Maiden Africa Investment
Jeff Bezos agreed to back Africa-focused financial technology company, Chipper Cash, making it his first start-up investment on the continent.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, impact investing, startups
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How GoDaddy is Boosting Digital Skills Development in India
The brand is helping small businesses from tier-2 & 3 cities to grow online.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Viewpoint: A Safaricom Split Is a Telco’s Dream and a Fintech Startup’s Nightmare
Talks of splitting up Kenya and East Africa’s dominant telco, Safaricom, previously gathered interest about five years ago when the Kenyan parliament stepped up calls to break the all-conquering telco into two fragments.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Data in Real Time: How Digitalisation is Transforming Financial Policies in Africa
For the past year, Cenfri and Finmark Trust have been partnering with NextBillion to share insights from their Insight2Impact (i2i) initiative, a five-year program that has sought to improve financial inclusion and related public policies through the smarter use of data. As the Openi2i Series concludes, i2i lead Hennie Bester takes a look back at the program and the learnings it has generated. In this interview, he explores how digitalisation and data are transforming the policy landscape in Africa and beyond.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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M-Pesa Revenue Dip in Kenya Is Beyond Mobile Money Fee Waivers
While it’s logically a good move putting the health and the wellbeing of people first, this single directive is found to have also caused a significant dip in revenue for Kenya’s dominant mobile money service, M-Pesa, and by extension, the country’s leading telco, Safaricom, took a hit.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa