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‘Financial Inclusion for Sustainable Development’: European Microfinance Week Nov. 18th – 20th
European Microfinance Week is a major annual event featuring high level, in-depth discussions by all sectors of the European microfinance community. The conference, which will take place Nov. 18th – 20th in Luxembourg, will welcome over 400 top professionals in the industry, from several dozen countries. NextBillion will be a media partner at the event, providing live tweeting, blog coverage and interviews with key participants.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Technology
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Tablets + Smartphones = Easier Microloans?: New Accion case study explores use of digital field applications by microfinance banks
Providing micro financial services often involves manual processes which limit the potential for scaling up and expose clients to poor service, errors and fraud. That's why many microfinance banks are increasing the use of tablets, smartphones and other digital tools among loan officers and other staff. Accion has published a case study aiming to provide some clarity on the impact of these devices.
- Categories
- Education, Technology, Telecommunications
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No Cardiac Clinic? No Problem: Handheld electrocardiogram monitor designed to provide distant, affordable heart care
Makers of Cardiotrack, a handheld ECG monitor, say it's easy to use, provides clinical grade output and performs predictive diagnosis to start intervention immediately, thus reducing the need for invasive intervention. Best of all, they say, is that it saves cardiologists’ time.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Saving Mothers and Their Babies: Innovators working to solve problems in the hardest-to-reach regions of the world
Saving Lives at Birth recently nominated 17 promising ideas to add to its impressive and growing group of innovators. These newest innovations rose to the top from a pool of more than 750 submissions, more than half of which came from low- and middle-income countries. The program will be announcing additional nominees for transition-to-scale awards (up to $2 million) later this year.
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- Health Care, Technology
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Gender Mobility: A deeper dive into female-friendly business, economic programs harnessing cell technology
Women are 21 percent less likely to own a phone than a man in developing nations.The mobile development community is aware of this gender gap and has kickstarted a number of programs to help. Global Envision profiles a few of the mobile providers that are ahead of the game with female-targeted programs.
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- Technology
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The Power of Texting: How a Simple Text Message Can Make the Difference Between Success and Failure for Social Initiatives
Mobile phones are increasingly prevalent throughout the world, and researchers have found that sending text message reminders can help people follow through with their intentions, significantly increasing the success of development interventions. Roxanne Bauer explores the impact of text reminders on malaria treatment and savings initiatives, and discusses the science behind the approach.
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- Health Care, Impact Assessment, Technology, Telecommunications
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Texting Toward a Better Business: What happened when women in three countries were offered bite-sized bits of business know-how via mobile phones
The Business Women mobile service, developed by the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, the ExxonMobil Foundation and Nokia, offered women bite-sized bits of business know-how via their mobile phones. Every week, thousands of women in Nigeria, Indonesia, and Tanzania received five or six business tips as part of a year-long curriculum.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
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NexThought Monday – Test Tubers: Why potatoes in Bangladesh are turning heads in the Andes
If you’re a subsistence farmer of potatoes, cassava or bananas, you’ll often sow your crops by taking cuttings from other plants. An alternative method of in vitro micro-propagation involves cloning plantlets in a laboratory setting. This can lead to dramatic gains in crop yields, but it’s expensive. But there may be a low-tech solution.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Technology
- Tags
- research
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