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The Future of Microfinance is Mobile: FinTech Resolves Three Key Obstacles of Lending to the Unbanked
The microfinance industry has arrived at a new inflection point, according to Frederic Nze, CEO and founder of U.K.-based digital microlender Oakam. Those businesses that are slow to embrace the transformative power of smartphone technology will feel the full force of disruption over the next decade while access to fair, affordable retail financial services will flourish for consumers and small enterprises the world over.
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- Finance, Technology
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ShelterTech Mexico 2017: Promoting Entrepreneurship and Investment in the Housing Sector
Habitat for Humanity, in partnership with Village Capital, launched ShelterTech Mexico 2017, a three-month accelerator focused on housing sector startups that are increasing access for marginalized communities to basic services in any of three areas: water and sanitation, energy, and innovative construction materials. Melva Flores talks about the two teams selected by their peers to receive an investment of US $50,000 each.
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- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Making Hardware Easier: ASME ISHOW Helps Expand Social Impact of ‘Frugal Technologies’
There are few resources to help “frugal technologies” and their makers succeed. That’s the problem that ISHOW, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' innovation showcase, tries to solve. The competition draws on ASME’s network of engineers, industrial designers, product specialists and diligence and standards experts, as well as venture capitalists and business specialists, all of whom are keen to see hardware innovation achieve a new level of positive impact.
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- Social Enterprise, Technology
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Want to Boost Financial Inclusion? Pay Interest on Mobile Money
E-money has been the principal means of increasing access to financial inclusion. Yet most accounts in emerging markets are used only to receive government payments that are then quickly withdrawn as cash. Ross P. Buckley, Louise Malady and Cheng-Yun Tsang say that one way to tackle this problem, and to promote financial inclusion, is to pay interest on e-money.
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- Uncategorized
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Responsible Finance: Moving Money from Mattresses to Mobiles
Technology has made it possible for lower-income people living in developing countries to access financial services that were previously beyond their reach. FINCA Impact Finance CEO Andrée Simon says her firm's new smartphone app, SimSim, which recently emerged from its pilot phase and already has 35,000 users, strikes a balance between the personal touch and modern fintech automation.
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- Finance, Technology
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Rethinking the Flush Toilet: It’s Time to Move Sanitation Infrastructure Off the Grid
Virginia Gardiner, inventor of the Loowatt toilet system, says sanitation infrastructure has to move off the grid, just as mobile communications did in the 20th century. She points to a growing number of companies, including her own, that are piloting the provision of non-sewered sanitation to households thorough container-based sanitation, a system that presents the most viable alternative for urban areas in need of sanitation solutions.
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- Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise, WASH
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Fear of a Jobless Planet: Can Entrepreneurship Counter the Coming AI Employment Crisis?
Imagine a future where robots are capable of doing just about everything under the sun, rendering countless professions across practically every industry obsolete. The first part of that dystopian vision has already come to pass. The second part hasn't, but could well be coming. What might be the solution? According to what we learned in July – entrepreneurship month at NB – it might fall on small businesses to answer the challenge.
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- Social Enterprise, Technology
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New Editor Joins NextBillion Team
Sonya Vann DeLoach has joined our staff as associate editor of NextBillion. Vann DeLoach is an award-winning journalist who for more than a decade was a copy editor for the Detroit Free Press, where she collaborated with reporters and editors on front-page, business and feature stories for both web and print editions of the newspaper. We welcome her to the NextBillion team!
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- Uncategorized
