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From Biometrics to Chatbots: Two Technology Challenges Aim to Help Governments Digitize their Economies
There is a growing consensus that emerging-market governments should digitize their economies, starting with the vast streams of payments they themselves make and receive. The DFS Lab is launching two technology challenges to fund new technologies that enable this transition: a Biometrics Challenge and a Chatbots Challenge. The deadline to enter is May 30.
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- Technology
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Two Billion Emerging Consumers are Only a Handset Away From Financial Inclusion
With mobile technology rallying across the emerging markets, the tools to turn the tide on financial inclusion are finally within reach. However, low-income consumers won't truly adopt the digital movement until they believe they can benefit from it. Michael Fernandes of LeapFrog Investments says educating 2 billion emerging consumers may sound like a daunting task, but it can be done.
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- Uncategorized
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Why Low-Income Families Don’t Send Their Children to College. Hint: It’s Not Always About Money.
Household income is not the only limiting factor as to why children of low to upper-low income families do not attend or save for university. Significant behavioral reasons are also involved, and ESCALA, which helps families save for higher education, worked with BFA’s customer insights team to identify and develop a plan to help overcome a few of them.
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From Trash to Resource: How Technology Can Help Informal Waste Pickers Solve India’s Recycling Problem
Due to its dependence on informal waste pickers, urban waste management in India is at once a complex problem to solve, and an excellent business opportunity. Kabadiwalla Connect, a tech-based social enterprise, is using smartphones and innovative logistics to help this informal ecosystem of urban recyclers make a better living and keep untold tons of garbage out of landfills.
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- Environment, Social Enterprise, Technology, WASH
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Climbing India’s Technology Stack: As the Fintech Revolution Extends to Health Care, Will Emerging Markets Be Ready?
The use of technology stacks has been a profoundly important breakthrough for social and financial inclusion in India, and it also opens up many opportunities to transform health care for the poorest residents there. But as these tech-based solutions proliferate in other low and middle-income countries, writes David Butz, the health care industry must be prepared for the massive disruptions they're likely to bring.
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- Uncategorized
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Three Social Business Lessons from Detroit’s ‘Grassroots Entrepreneurs’
The self-determination that characterizes many Detroit entrepreneurs is a powerful paradigm for emerging markets, say authors Amy Gillett and Nathan Rauh-Bieri, and would-be providers of social entrepreneurship interventions should note a lesson learned: Make sure what you are offering is requested by the community, customized for the community and implemented with the community.
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- Education, Social Enterprise
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Two-Sided Mobile Platform Creates ‘Network Effect’ to Help Patients, Health Clinics
The private health sector, where a large percentage of people in developing countries seek care, is fragmented and marked by poor quality and high prices. Two interlinked programs conceived by a group in the Netherlands – M-TIBA and the Medical Credit Fund – are attempting to address this problem at large scale. Both have achieved remarkable growth within a short period.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Surviving a Pandemic: How ‘Economic Training’ Helps Families Live Beyond HIV/AIDS
Millions of households are struggling to support children affected by HIV/AIDS. A new approach seeks to ease their burden by integrating economic strengthening activities into programs that already serve orphans and vulnerable children and their extended families. It involves training practitioners with new skill sets, so they in turn can help others develop financial independence and resilience.
- Categories
- Health Care
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