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A Doctor in your Pocket: The medical potential of smart phones
Mobile access has provided vast new opportunities for businesses and non-profits serving the base of the pyramid – even though most BoP cell phone users have feature phones limited to voice and texting. But with improving networks and falling prices, smart phone technology promises to expand the mobile revolution in developing markets in the coming years, providing game-changing possibilities for health care consumers and companies.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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A Deal with the Devil?: Should health care advocates partner with “Big Food”?
BoP countries are facing a growing epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, cancers and cardiovascular diseases. But though global health care organizations are responding, they can’t effectively tackle this epidemic without addressing the unhealthy foods and drinks that contribute to it. But what happens when the "Big Food" corporations whose products fuel the NCD epidemic also fund and advise the global health organizations that are fighting it?
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- Health Care
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Special Series (Part 2): BPO for the BoP – The need for (and promise of) Impact Sourcing
In part one of this series, we defined Impact Sourcing and some of the factors accelerating its growth. Now, let’s look a little deeper into the two key trends driving interest in the space and whether these can be married through Impact Sourcing in a manner that drives benefit for both the BPO industry, as well as poor and vulnerable communities in emerging economies.
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- Agriculture, Education, Impact Assessment, Technology
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Mozambique : Is impact investment the answer for agribusiness?
Foreign investments in Mozambique face an incredibly challenging business environment. Impact investors are filling in the capital gap that exists in developing countries such as Mozambique by providing early and mid stage growth capital to companies with a good track record, often without need for collateral and at risk adjusted rates compared to those available on the local market.
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- Agriculture
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Special Series (Part 1): BPO for the BoP – defining Impact Sourcing and its potential to boost employment opportunity
Impact Sourcing, also known as socially responsible outsourcing, is an exciting and emerging space within the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. Through work performed by the William Davidson Institute and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, this series explores the challenges and potential for impact sourcing to alleviate poverty for millions of people in a sustainable manner through job creation and employment.
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- Education, Technology
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Weekly Roundup 1/19/13: A March conference focuses on Marketing to the BoP (A video Q&A with Hystra’s Kayser)
Olivier Kayser is the founder and managing director of Hystra, a for-profit firm that works with business and social sector innovators to design and implement hybrid strategies for businesses and NGOs working at the BoP. Hystra is releasing a new research paper “Marketing for the BoP," which will be the centerpiece of a March conference.
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- Uncategorized
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Controlling the Family Purse Strings, But Not the Cell Phone: mWomen report examines how low-income women can gain mobile money access
The report emphasizes that working with the communication channels used by BoP women could be an effective way of combating unfamiliarity, misconceptions, and inequitable social dynamics.
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- Uncategorized
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MakeSense : Now in Brazil, the problem-solving platform looks to expand
MakeSense is an open project created to solve the myriad challenges that social entrepreneurs face. On the site, entrepreneurs are invited to enter their daily trials and tribulations, and solicit remedies from users. In addition, the site organizes "hold-up" events, in which, for three hours, a "gangster" (that is, a member of MakeSense) leads a brainstorming session with 10 to 15 people to offer solutions for a particular entrepreneur’s challenge.
- Categories
- Education
