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Doctors, Researchers – Tear Down this Paywall: Paving a new road to research-based action in global development
The disconnect between development research and the communities it studies is an all-too-common trend in the international development community, with the Ebola crisis being the most recent example. The intuitive reason for this disconnect is cost of access. However, price is just the tip of the iceberg. Adam Lewis asks: If a study is published and no one is able to access, understand or apply it, does it make an impact?
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- Education, Health Care
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- research
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Twitter Top Ten 6-20-15: Twitter’s bounty in 10 favorites this week
Advocacy, accolades, advice and aphorisms. Those four A’s describe most of the Tweets that we have hand-picked for you this week from the world of global health, business development and impact investing – to name just a few.
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup – The Pope Pulls No Punches: Controversial encyclical puts spotlight on BoP and reboots debate
Pope Francis touched a nerve with the encyclical that he issued Thursday. More importantly, he shined a light on economic inequality. And, as one of the world’s most powerful people, it’s an incredibly bright spotlight.
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- Uncategorized
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The Big Advantages of Being Small: How a mobile money startup beat the major players in Zambia
Once called “the best kept secret in Africa,” the digital finance company Zoona has quickly advanced from a scrappy startup to one of the leading mobile money providers in Zambia. Jungwon Byun describes how, despite being outmatched in terms of size and capital, Zoona has outcompeted the telcos and established banks in the country.
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- Uncategorized
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Social impact measurement for business: Vision is good, (joint) action is better
In a new report, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development is calling on organizations, experts and practitioners to join them in developing a harmonized approach for businesses to measure and value their interactions with society: A Social Capital Protocol.
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- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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The Trouble with Over-the-Counter Digital Finance: Powerful agents and fractured markets cause challenges in Pakistan
Pakistan is easily one of the top five leading digital finance markets in the world, and also one of the least understood. The country adopted an Over-the-Counter methodology, in which transactions are executed by the agent as opposed to the customer over a mobile wallet platform. But according to the Helix Institute, this approach has caused significant challenges for the industry.
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- Technology
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Launching Products that Meet Needs: Addressing market demand through user-centered development
Health care products generated through a holistic process that starts with good product development, and incorporates public health and commercialization perspectives throughout the process, are more likely to meet the needs of the intended user groups and other key stakeholders.
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- Health Care, Technology
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NexThought Monday – How 5,000 Stranded Flip-Flops Almost Doomed Three Social Startups
Five years ago, Village Capital made its first investment – in Feelgoodz, the a U.S. fair-trade rubber company, which sells comfortable flip-flops that are responsibly manufactured in South Asia. Feelgoodz got a major purchase order from Whole Foods that January. Sounds like a great story, so why is the headline so depressing?
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