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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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Twitter Top Ten – 6-14-15
This week Twitter CEO Dick Costolo stepped down. His exit was expected, considering the pressure from Wall Street and from one of Twitter’s biggest investors Chris Sacca to make the service more user friendly. Until that day comes, we’re happy to curate our favorite Tweets of the week for you.
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Weekly Roundup – Walter Peck Had a Point: Why regulators and entrepreneurs sometimes have to ‘cross the streams’
There were plenty of supernatural bad guys in the movie Ghostbusters, but the villain you probably despised the most was the overbearing EPA agent Walter Peck. But while he may have been a jerk, his efforts to regulate the Ghostbusters were absolutely justified. We (somehow) tie the film to recent events in Uganda’s mobile money industry in this roundup.
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10 Key Issues Shaping Mobile Money in Africa: Takeaways from the Mondato Summit Africa
Africa is ground zero of the mobile money revolution, a rapidly developing and exciting – but often chaotic and confusing – space. Last week, some of the top names in the industry gathered in Johannesburg at the Mondato Summit Africa to bring some clarity to its present and future. We’ve put together 10 key takeaways from the event.
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- Agriculture, Health Care, Technology
