-
How to Land a $2 Million Social Venture Investment
About 1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water, and diarrhea, which is linked to inadequate drinking water and sanitation, kills more children than malaria, AIDS, and measles put together. Yet even effective products addressing this challenge have struggled with low uptake. Mercy Corps examines an enterprise that has bucked this trend, attracting investment through its innovative filtration method and business model.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
-
100 Social Innovators and 10 Lessons for Career, Life
In interviewing the social innovators profiled in Solving Problems that Matter, I noticed a number of recurring themes of championing rigorous, ethical, evidence-based approaches; learning how to fail and bounce back; and being willing to question the dominant paradigm. Innovators stressed the need to deeply understand the challenges and the larger system by spending considerable time in the field talking with all the stakeholders. They emphasized the need to seek and analyze the lessons learned from previous efforts, quantify results and build relationships across sectors.
-
Weekly Roundup: Keeping Talent, Seeking Another Uber, Auctioning Vegetables, Watching for Seagulls
In this week's Roundup: The talent dilemma in social entrepreneurship; a discussion about whether there will ever be an Uber for health care; a smallholder farmer turned WhatsApp auctioneer; and the revelation that the highest use of drones is probably not as sunscreen-pooping seagulls.
- Categories
- Health Care
-
Equipping a New Era of Global Development
Sometimes it can feel like NGOs, social businesses and big development aid institutions are in competition with one another to improve the world. But in an increasingly complex world, we should view violent extremist organizations, such as ISIS, as development competitors. This perspective was a running theme – but one of several facing social entrepreneurs and global development leaders at all levels – discussed at Devex World.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment
-
Getting Silicon Valley Behind Development: First, change its attitudes
Silicon Valley has become the global center for entrepreneurship because it has developed the assets, networks and cultural values necessary to promote risk-taking and innovation. The Valley has an incredibly productive and self-reinforcing entrepreneurial ecosystem. Such a system may well be impossible to fully replicate in other places — especially in less wealthy, emerging market regions. However, entrepreneurial talent and passion can be found everywhere.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
-
Weekly Roundup: Appreciating banks, emojis for health, d.light’s destination
This week in our roundup: A major new study shows mobile finance is essential, but highlights the role of old fashioned banks; the language of emojis could improve global health; and solar lamp pioneers d.light are well on their way to reaching their goal of 100 million customers by the start of the next decade.
- Categories
- Health Care
-
How Leveraging Collaborative Expertise Helps Scale Social Impact
Organisations, networks and government should foster a culture of ongoing interactions with people from other sectors and collaborate to develop new structures and business models that can be replicated. The commitment demands time and extended effort. But for those with an appetite to buy into the risk, there is a tremendous potential for social ventures to scale and create a massive impact.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
-
Taking a Match to Convention: A Podcast Chat with Matchboxology’s Cal Bruns
Cal Bruns left a successful career with advertising powerhouse Leo Burnett to found Matchboxology, a human-centered design consultancy with offices in Capetown and Johannesburg South Africa. He chats with NextBillion Contributing Editor Scott Anderson in the NextBillion podcast.
- Categories
- Health Care
