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NexThought Monday: Putting M-PESA’s Success into Perspective, Why B2B Will be Slower than P2P
M-PESA is a shining, unusual, inspiring success. And while the service is wildly popular in person-to-person networks, surprisingly few businesses use it. If M-PESA is to penetrate the business-to-business market, it will need to avoid the pitfalls of other brands.
- Categories
- Technology
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Weekly Roundup – Inspiration, With Questions
While monologues by veteran leaders who have starred down adversity can be rousing to throngs of cap and gowned graduates, dialogues have their own special appeal. So in this season of pomp and circumstance (and sometimes banality) it was great to see a new series of one-on-one interviews hosted by Jonathan Lewis at ionPoverty hit the Internet. iOnPoverty is an online video series targeting young professionals and students seeking careers in economic opportunity and justice work.
- Categories
- Education
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The Unitus Seed Fund: Harnessing Small Equity for Scale at the BoP
I recently had the opportunity to interview Dave Richards, managing director of Unitus Seed Fund – a new seed stage venture fund investing in startups with high potential to improve the lives of many BoP families in India. USF is focused on making small equity investments – typically $50,000 to $100,000 – at the seed stage where round sizes are less than $500,000 and usually less than $250,000.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Representing 8 Counties, 11 Languages: Introducing Acumen Fund’s Global Fellows Class of 2013
We are proud to announce the Class of 2013 Global Fellows, a group that represents eight countries, speaks 11 languages, and brings a depth of global experience ranging from software engineering at Google to directing operations at a fashion house in Saudi Arabia. This dedicated cohort is the latest addition to a growing network of individuals bringing a new model of leadership to the world.
- Categories
- Education
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Daniel Izzo on Brazil’s First Impact Investing Venture Capital Firm
Recently, the Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ) Initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank hosted Daniel Izzo, co-founder and partner of Vox Capital, Brazil’s first impact investing venture capital firm, which focuses on high potential businesses that serve the Brazilian low income population through products and services with the potential to improve their lives. In addition, Vox Capital is the first Brazilian fund OMJ is investing in.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Scratch it Off the Public Health Wish-list: A menu of IT solutions for global health challenges
Observing the widespread use of ICT, coupled with intense interest from the global health community—witness, a few of my colleagues at the Center for Health Market Innovations set out to figure out why programs used technology. To answer this question, they analyzed more than 600 programs in over 100 countries—the contents of CHMI’s database at the time. Their findings, published in this month’s WHO Bulletin, highlight six key reasons health program managers adopt ICT.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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The Rockefeller Foundation at 100 Years: The Road Ahead
As part of its centennial celebrations The Rockefeller Foundation has launched various initiatives including the Innovation Challenges. Michael Myers, senior policy officer and director of Centennial Programming at The Rockefeller Foundation answered a few questions about the Innovations Challenge and the centennial.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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NexThought Monday: How Innovative Financing Mechanisms Are Helping Afghanistan’s Farmers
It’s not easy to improve farmers’ livelihoods in any developing country. Add in ongoing violence, feeble institutions, and some of the lowest living standards in the world, and the task can seem nearly impossible. But in August 2010, a project team from DAI landed in Afghanistan to do just that—by implementing USAID’s Agricultural Credit Enhancement (ACE) program, which aimed to lend $100 million to farmers and agribusinesses to invest in agriculture across the country.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
