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Can a Tech Start-Up Successfully Educate Children in the Developing World?
Bridge International Academies — a chain of inexpensive private schools — has ambitious plans to revolutionize education for poor children. But can its for-profit model work in some of the most impoverished places on Earth?
- Categories
- Education
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Illuminating the developing world’s “invisible” consumers
Texting-based surveys capture purchasing and behavior data from people living in remote areas.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Nigeria: 10 Microfinance Banks Account for 40 Percent of Industry Loan
THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said the ten microfinance banks account for 40 percent of total loans in the subsector.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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Malawi opens drone testing corridor for humanitarian efforts
The air corridor is a result of the partnership with the UN's children's agency and officials say it opens up the possibility for "potential humanitarian" drone use in the southeast African country.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Stakeholders advocate bespoke intervention schemes for MSMEs
According to the stakeholders, MSMEs are the first responders to societal needs and are responsible for significant employment and income generation opportunities across the world even as they have been identified as a major driver of poverty alleviation and development.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- MSMEs
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TLcom Capital hits $40m first close for sub-Saharan Africa tech fund
The $100m-targeting TIDE Africa fund will look to provide African entrepreneurs with capital to develop tech-driven solutions to the continent’s biggest problems.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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MIT in search of Africa’s most innovative entrepreneurs
According to the MIT Legatum Centre, the Open Mic Africa program seeks to find and showcase Africa's top innovators while developing a dialogue among local entrepreneurs, investors and MIT.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- innovation
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The Race to Solar-Power Africa
The spread of cell phones in the region has made it possible for residents to pay daily or weekly bills using mobile money, and now the hope is that, just as cell phones bypassed the network of telephone lines, solar panels will enable many rural consumers to bypass the electric grid. From Ghana, I travelled to Ivory Coast, and then to Tanzania, and along the way I encountered a variety of new solar ventures, most of them American-led. Some, such as Ghana’s Black Star Energy, which had electrified Daban, install solar microgrids, small-scale versions of the giant grid Americans are familiar with. Others, such as Off-Grid Electric, in Tanzania and Ivory Coast, market home-based solar systems that run on a panel installed on each individual house.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa