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Leveraging Blockchain for Good: A Q&A with Ken Weber, Head of Social Impact at Ripple
Blockchain has been sparking social innovation for years – and much of it has focused on payments. Ripple has been an innovator in this space since 2012, leveraging its blockchain-powered payment technology to enable international remittances through a network that now spans over 40 countries and six continents. In this Q&A, Ken Weber, Ripple’s Head of Social Impact discusses the company's multi-faceted efforts to "advance socially responsible and equitable uses of blockchain, cryptocurrency and related technologies.”
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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How Microfinance Can Impact Employment: Going Beyond Microloans to Microentrepreneurs
Though its focus has broadened in recent years, microfinance and employment have always gone hand-in-hand. In this video interview, Craig Churchill, head of the Social Finance Programme at the International Labour Organization, discusses how modern microfinance can better serve the low-income labor force – from supporting job-creating startups, to responding to poor labor practices among their clients.
- Categories
- Finance
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The Power of Individuals: Why Formal Institutions Aren’t the Only Ones Driving Africa’s Innovation and Fintech Space
There’s a lot of attention on the businesses, NGOs and other institutions reshaping Africa’s fintech ecosystem. But there are equally important efforts underway – conducted not by institutions themselves, but by the individuals working within them – to build bridges between organizations, and create support networks for entrepreneurs and innovators. In this Q&A, Zianah Muddu, General Secretary of the Africa Fintech Network, discusses the pivotal – often overlooked – impact of this work.
- Categories
- Finance
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Changing Mindsets to Empower Women: Roshaneh Zafar, On How Kashf Foundation Helped Microfinance Take Root in Pakistan
There was no shortage of skeptics when Roshaneh Zafar first started talking about launching a microfinance institution with a focus on women's empowerment in Pakistan. But over two decades after founding Kashf Foundation, Zafar has proven them wrong. In this video Q&A, she discusses how she brought the first specialized microfinance institution to Pakistan – and crafted an approach that helps the country's female entrepreneurs overcome the unique barriers they face.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Finance
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How ‘Market-Creating Innovations’ Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty: A Q&A with Efosa Ojomo
Efosa Ojomo is a senior research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute and a rising star in the world of impact-focused business. He has spoken and written extensively about the potential of innovation to lift developing countries out of poverty – including in his recent book “The Prosperity Paradox," co-written with Christensen. In this Q&A, Ojomo discusses the concept of market-creating innovations, and their unique value as a global development tool.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, NextBillion Originals
- Tags
- employment, innovation, interviews
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Big Investors Need to Change the Way They Do Business: A Q&A with the GIIN’s Co-Founder and CEO, Amit Bouri
The overall impact investing market portfolio is now estimated at half a trillion dollars. So how are Asia – and specifically India – shaping up in terms of impact investment growth and development? Smarinita Shetty, co-founder and CEO at India Development Review, asks this and other questions in this interview with Amit Bouri, the CEO and co-founder of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). Bouri notes that despite several new retail opportunities, it's still not enough to move the needle.
- Categories
- Investing
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Financial Inclusion Week: Reflection and Action from Three Leading Voices
Today, the Center for Financial Inclusion is wrapping up Financial Inclusion Week. The intention for the week was to ask some soul-searching questions about what it means to be inclusive – and about how financial access in the age of fintech can impact the lives of millions, for good or ill. We caught up with three leading voices in the field, asking each of them three key questions focused on what financial inclusion means to them from a personal, organizational and international standpoint.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment, Investing, Technology
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Charting the Next Decade in the Global Small and Growing Business Sector: A Q&A with ANDE Executive Director Randall Kempner
The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, a membership organization of investment groups, NGOs and business ecosystem advocates, recently marked its 10th anniversary. As it approaches a second decade moving the global small and growing business sector forward, ANDE announced a new strategy that focuses on gender, the environment and job creation. We spoke with Executive Director Randall Kempner about what the future holds for ANDE and the global SGB sector.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Finance, Impact Assessment, Investing
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