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NexThought Monday: Closing China’s Credit Gap
China's economy is on the path toward becoming more financially inclusive, but because the centralized Credit Reference Agency falls short, there's still a need for a scalable system for credit evaluation. Alibaba-affiliate Ant Financial is trying to provide an innovative solution.
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- Uncategorized
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(Reinvented) Weekly Roundup: Cashless Betting, Good Pod, Beautiful Resolve
NextBillion is changing the format of our Weekly Roundup. Rather than more lengthy, editor-written analysis of weekly events, on Fridays we’ll curate a number of news articles, announcements, tweets, videos and other media that captured our attention over the course of the week.
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- Social Enterprise
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Creating a Less Taxing Climate for Off-Grid Solar Energy
As countries are seeing the huge power and potential of decentralized renewables – such as off-grid solar – to combat energy poverty, taxes and tariffs on quality distributed energy products are no longer certain at all, and the trend looks set to continue.
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- Energy, Environment, Technology
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- off-grid energy, solar
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5 Trends Accelerating the Acceptance of STEM Professionals in Sustainable Development
STEM innovation has led to many of the biggest social impacts in recent human history: chlorinated drinking water, oral re-hydration therapy, solar energy, and many more that we often overlook or underestimate. Fortunately, as STEM professionals forge their way in the social innovation space, there are five major trends accelerating their acceptance as sustainable development practitioners.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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‘Clubfoot Can Be Solved on a Global Scale’
miraclefeet believes clubfoot can be solved on a global scale and envisions a world where every child can receive treatment. The five-year-old organization partners with local health care providers in public hospitals to support the Ponseti treatment and to ultimately create sustainable clubfoot programs in low-resource countries.
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- Health Care
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Three Ways to Optimize the Smartphone Experience for the Next Billion Users
Across emerging markets, smartphone adoption is predicted to outpace bank accounts by the end of the year, opening up an increasingly clear opportunity for more multifaceted financial services. However, a range of technical constraints still hold some users back. Here are three ways to optimize for a more inclusive future.
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- Technology
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Inclusive Business Partnerships: Distracting Dead End or Sustainable Solution?
If anything has been proven in the past decade of inclusive business, it's that “go it alone” doesn't work. The enterprises that are going to scale have partners. The other inescapable facts are that partnering is hard and some partnerships don't work. The problem is perhaps that partnering is assumed to be something that just happens and anyone can do it.
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- Uncategorized
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Opportunity International’s Evolving Microfinance Strategy: A Podcast Q&A with CEO Vicki Escarra
Opportunity International, a pioneer in the microfinance space, operates 39 microfinance institutions in Africa, Eastern Europe, Central and East Asia and Latin America. But recently, the organization has been undergoing a strategic shift, announcing the sale of several MFIs in sub-Saharan Africa. We spoke with Opportunity's CEO, Vicki Escarra, about these moves – and many other topics – in this Q&A, NextBillion's second podcast.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- microfinance, philanthropy
