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‘A Sweet Spot for Impact Investing’: Omidyar Network’s Roopa Kudva discusses India’s Growing Prominence
There was a surprising amount of tension on SOCAP's panel on impact investing in India, much of it revolving around a simple question: Are these investments making a difference? As one panelist put it, "Just because you're doing it, doesn't mean it's actually helping." Roopa Kudva, a partner at Omidyar Network, sat on the panel, and afterward she shared her views on this question, and on the impact sector's growing prominence in India, in a video Q&A.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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The ‘Treacherous’ Transition from a Great Tech Idea to Sustainable Business
Hyrax Biosciences recently developed Exatype, a software solution that enables health care workers to quickly and affordably determine HIV positive patients’ responsiveness to treatment. In this Q&A, Dr. Kirsten Miller-Duys, business development lead, discusses Exatype’s implications for global health, plans to turn it into a sustainable business, and Africa's emerging tech sector.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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What We’ve Got Here is a Failure to Communicate: Three Ways to Bridge the Academic/Practitioner Gap
Evidence-based policymaking requires a collaborative relationship between the worlds of research, policy and practice. But productive three-way communication between these actors is difficult, as vague prejudices can limit each side's ability to listen and learn. As every failure to communicate is a missed opportunity, Innovations for Poverty Action explores some ways to improve learning and communication.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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Weekly Roundup: Ending Disease, Growing Coffee and (Still) Distrusting Bankers
In our Weekly Roundup, we suggest that despite what you might see on Facebook, finding cures in laboratories is the easy part of healing the planet; we celebrate the buzz around relationship coffee; and we give readers one more reason to distrust bankers (and we're not even talking about Wells Fargo).
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- Uncategorized
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‘Inequality Limits Growth … and You Get What You Incent’: Takeaways from Day 1 of the SEEP Network’s Annual Conference
SEEP’s 2016 conference, themed “Expanding Market Frontiers,” continues today in Washington, D.C. NextBillion editor Kyle Poplin is there, and he compiled some of the things he found most interesting during Tuesday’s sessions.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Fighting Poverty Through … Car Title Loans? A Q&A with Finova CEO Greg Keough
The words "car title loan" are usually associated with cycles of debt and repossessed vehicles rather than any positive social impact. But Finova, a Florida-based startup, hopes to change that image and disrupt the $5.3 billion emergency cash lending industry by providing un- and under-banked people in the U.S. with access to fairly priced loans, while improving their credit scores and helping them get out of debt. We spoke with Greg Keough, Finova's CEO, in this Q&A.
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- Uncategorized
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Eight Principles for Digital Payments in Humanitarian Response
Recognizing both the practical challenges to using locally available digital payment services and the powerful opportunity to leverage humanitarian spending to build inclusive, lasting financial infrastructure, 24 public, multilateral and nongovernmental organizations met in Barcelona earlier this year and developed eight principles for digital payments in humanitarian response.
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup: Hippies vs. Capitalists at SOCAP, Data (and Honors) for Social Entrepreneurs and a ‘What’ for WHO
We're betting that, even if you're a social entrepreneur, the new Thomson Reuters Foundation poll about your profession contains information you didn't know. Read more about the poll in this week's Roundup, along with “the most effective social entrepreneurs on the planet”; advice for WHO; and some final thoughts from SOCAP.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing