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How Your Business Can Help End the Global Water and Sanitation Crisis: Highlights from a New Report
Businesses are key to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6, which calls for reaching everyone, everywhere with taps and toilets by 2030. A new report from WaterAid, CEO Water Mandate and WBCSD spells out an “ideal” approach to water, sanitation and hygiene which businesses could implement in their supply chains – and how that investment can contribute to core business values, both ethically and financially.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Environment, Health Care
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Control vs Ease of Use: Low Income Customers Weigh In on Financial Services
Automated 21st century financial tools, such as bill pay, are meant to make life easier. But for low-income customers and those with uneven cash flow, the need for control of their money can outweigh these benefits. Kristen Berman and Brad Swain of Duke University's Common Cents Lab try to reconcile this seeming contradiction.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
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‘Internet Access is Like Oxygen’: Converging Connectivity and Energy Access
Microsoft’s Affordable Access Initiative is providing grants to internet access and related services companies and startups reaching underserved communities in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and North America. In June, the tech giant announced the second year of grantees. Paul Garnett, senior director of the Affordable Access Initiative at Microsoft, explores how internet connectivity can have a ripple effect.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Technology
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Transforming Waste Management, and Waste-Pickers’ Prospects, in Bengaluru
In February, Ennovent Global's Impact Investment Holding invested in Hasiru Dala Innovations, a Bengaluru-based company offering waste management services. The firm's initiatives, centered on the circular economy principle, provide waste management and urban gardening services and products, and also help ensure the livelihoods of waste-pickers, improve facilities for Bengaluru residents and divert over 90 percent of waste from landfills.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Environment, Investing
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Enhancing Access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs – What Should Financial Institutions Do?
IFC determined that 70 percent of women entrepreneurs are un(der)served and face a USD $300 billion annual credit deficit. Anup Singh and Christine Wanjiru Gachui of MicroSave make the case for banks extending credit to women, who end up being roughly twice as profitable for them as men.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Financial Inclusion
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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.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, 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.
- Categories
- Energy, Entrepreneurship
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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.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Events and Competitions, Technology
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