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Social Business Roundup: Biblical Impact Investing, Salt from Solar in Kenya and Invoices of Inclusion
In this week's social business roundup: “Biblically responsible investing” is offering another path to the predominately secular space of SRI, one of Kenya's largest solar projects could be a model for rural power and how one company's approach to the tedious process of invoicing customers could lead to more financial inclusion in the Philippines.
- Categories
- Energy, Health Care, Investing
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Social Business Roundup: A $1 Smartphone, the Upshot of Disparity and the Quizzing of Presidents
If you manufacture a phone that comes with apps advertising to low-income consumers, can you sell it for as little as $1? The folks at SocialEco think so. Other items NextBillion's editors came across for this week's Roundup included a concentration on wealth concentration, an unhappy birthday for M-Pesa, plus a presidential Q that will hopefully result in an A.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Creative Climbing: How Impact Enterprises are Overcoming Obstacles in East Africa
In 2016, Intellecap undertook a study to better understand how East African impact entrepreneurs manage to design viable business models despite the various market challenges. The insights from the study can inform inclusive development in the region and across the global south. The study classified impact enterprises across three levers based on their interaction with the BoP: access, ability and knowledge.
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- Agriculture, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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EdTech Startups are Flashy, But Teacher Relationships Remain Critical
In this Q&A, Amy Ahearn and Santiago Melo of Acumen explain how the use of education technology, or "edtech," is evolving in emerging markets. For one thing, it's become obvious that in addition to building technology, organizations that hope to reach scale must also build relationships with teachers, and approach districts and governments as customers.
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- Education
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Social Business Roundup: Scrutinizing a $30M Cookstove Study, the Limits of Silicon Valley and TV from the Sun
A $30 million study looking into using liquified petroleum gas in clean cookstoves has some 'stovers' heated up, why apps won't stop pandemics and why the time may be right for solar TV. It's all in our weekly roundup of social business news.
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- Energy, Environment, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Technology
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- climate health, solar
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Social Business Roundup: Building Our Immunity to Anti-Vaxxers, Solar Loans With a Side of Health, and SRI Goes Robo
There’s a crisis of trust in the world, some of it well earned – and some, like skepticism about vaccines, completely unwarranted. We cover an alarming uptick in the anti-vax movement's profile, an effort to pair solar loans with health care in Ghana, and the emergence of "robo-SRI" in this news roundup.
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- Energy, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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- ESG, impact investing, solar, vaccines
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Announcing NextBillion’s 2017 Editorial Calendar and Our First Monthly Theme: Microfinance
It's a new year, and NextBillion is announcing a new approach to showcase our diverse array of content: Each month, along with our regular coverage of the broader social business world, we’ll dedicate special coverage to a specific sector. We're launching the concept this month, with a special focus on microfinance. You can view our full 2017 editorial calendar here.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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- microfinance
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Measuring Impact With Meaning: 50 Funds That Are Best For The World
Some players in the market, in seeking a simple solution, have settled on measuring impact through a few metrics. But the oversimplification of how to do so creates a risk that impact investing becomes meaningless to the mainstream capital markets. One solution is highlighted in BLab's recently released inaugural Best for the World Funds list, which includes 50 fund managers who are doing impact management with meaning.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
- Tags
- impact investing, research
