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Startups and Venture Capital vs. COVID-19: How an INR 1 Billion Grant Program Is Boosting India’s Pandemic Response
India is home to many innovative startups that are leveraging technology to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. To support them, a group of prominent venture capital funds and founders recently launched ACT Grants, an INR 1 billion effort to fund scale-ready solutions to COVID-related challenges. NextBillion spoke with Mekin Maheshwari, founder of Udhyam Learning Foundation – a key partner in the initiative – about how it is helping India’s startups ramp up their battle against the virus.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Investing, Technology
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How USAID is Capitalizing on New Trends in Development Finance by Attracting Impact Investors
As the funding landscape for global health evolves, new financing models for the development and commercialization of medicines and diagnostics are needed. Priya Sharma of USAID's Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact discusses the agency's forays into impact investing, and its recent report, “Investing for Impact: Capitalizing on the emerging landscape for global health financing” in this Q&A.
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- Health Care, Investing
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Got a Great Idea? Don’t Start Your Own Nonprofit: A Q&A with Dr. Jane Aronson
Dr. Jane Aronson, a pediatrician and president and CEO of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, will deliver a keynote address, "Scaling an Idea: Innovation at its Best," at Unite for Sight's Global Health & Innovation Conference this weekend at Yale University. In this Q&A, she shares some valuable lessons for nonprofits and the young people who hope to join (or start) them, including where NGOs typically go wrong and the problem of falling in love with your own great idea.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Finding a Sanitation Destiny: ‘I Am Supposed to Design Toilets’
Jasmine Burton of Wish for WASH: "Although we are still very much researching and iterating our design, (the) SafiChoo (toilet) is innovative because it seeks to incorporate human-centered design and community-driven solutions to best improve the user experience in all parts of the market (from manufacturing to shipping to distributing to customers to end users)."
- Categories
- Health Care, WASH
- Tags
- sanitation
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Turning Flower Pots into Life-savers
In 2009, Philip Wilson led his Guatemala-based organization’s transition from an NGO to a social business, and since then its customer base has expanded dramatically. Ecofiltro found that giving its water filters away was not scalable or financially sustainable – but that ensuring his customers' dignity was.
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- Health Care
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The Economic Case for Sanitation
"The economic impact of poor or zero safe sanitation is catastrophic but preventable," says Mark La Trobe, international managing director of Enviro Loo. He believes his firm – which makes waterless, chemical-free toilets that use air movement and heat from the sun to reduce solid waste – is in prime position to make a global difference.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- public health
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Human Waste as a Value Chain: ‘Sustainable sanitation’ startup has plans to expand throughout Peru and, eventually, abroad
Lima, Peru, is one of the driest capital cities in the world. That's one reason x-runner, a social enterprise, has had success selling urine-diverting dry toilets and coordinating a for-pay sanitation system for subscribers in the slums there. Another reason might be its trial and error, local-oriented approach.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Cracking the Code on Affordable Health Care – Part 2: An Interview With Dr. Devi Shetty, Founder of Narayana Hrudayalaya
Devi Shetty is one of the world’s most celebrated surgeons, and the founder of Narayana Hrudayalaya, one of India’s largest hospital chains.
He has pioneered a radically affordable (and profitable) health care model for heart surgeries and other care. In part 2 of our Q&A with Dr. Shetty, we discuss Narayana Hrudayalaya’s innovative use of technology, and its ambitious plans for the future.- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise