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Where Ethics and the Enterprise Intersect: 1,001 questions at the 2015 Latin American Impact Investment Forum (FLII)
What is an ethical business? During last month’s Latin America Impact Investing Forum (FLII) Avina’s Bernardo Toro, said it clearly: “It is a business that doesn’t prey on people; one that creates real value; one that pays attention to what’s important, not what’s showy.” Simple and to the point, so why do we struggle with it?
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Who Moved My Cheese?: A social enterprise discovers that the dairy business is harder than it looks
In a poor region of Bolivia, goat milk producers often drink their own product, for lack of a market. Pro-Milk was launched to help them make and sell cheese instead. But the company was soon undermined by challenges in its business model and region. Fundación IES, a development institution that supported Pro-Milk, tells the story in the latest post in our business failure series.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
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Check out a Replay of Latest Google+ Hangout : Our guests: Kayser, Budinich authors of ‘Scaling Up Business Solutions to Social Problems’
The new book, “Scaling Up Business Solutions to Social Problems,” not only assesses “why is the lab for social innovation full but its globalization plant so empty?” but provides realistic remedies to turn around vexing problem of scale. In our next Google Hangout, authors Olivier Kayser and Valeria Budinich join us.
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- Uncategorized
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A Quest to End Seasonal Hunger in Coffee Lands: How major companies are working with farmers during scarce times
When specialty coffee buyers visit coffee bean farmers, they usually want to taste the coffee for the flavor nuances, discuss price differentials, volumes, and delivery months. They don’t usually ask whether the kids are going hungry. Keurig Green Mountain doesn’t want to leave that question unasked anymore. And the company is not alone.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Tags
- supply chains
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‘Financial inclusion is not going to be realized without smartly leveraging technology’: An interview with Carol Caruso, Senior Vice President, Channels and Technology at Accion
With cellphones booming in developing countries, achieving universal financial inclusion by 2020 is no longer unrealistic. Accion has been at the forefront of digital finance as an anti-poverty tool. We recently spoke with Carol Caruso, who leads Accion’s Channels & Technology unit, about what the future holds.
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- Uncategorized
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Make the Solution Fit the Challenge: Tapping into mobile telephony’s potential to address long-standing problems in Africa
Mobile telephony has grown exponentially in Africa, but the founders of InstaHealth maintain that it still has untapped potential to address long-standing community challenges.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Indonesia, The Calm Before the Storm: Helix Institute discusses the implications of new regulations on the country’s mobile money agent networks
In Indonesia, regulatory uncertainly has kept big digital financial services players from investing to scale aggressively. But with new regulations, that may soon change. The Helix Institute examines the implications for Indonesian mobile money agent networks in the latest report from its Agent Network Accelerator Survey.
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- Uncategorized
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NexThought Monday – The (Financial) Wisdom of the Crowd: How a group of non-experts outperformed traditional credit ratings at identifying good and bad borrowers
Determining risk has always been a hurdle for lenders, and a barrier for small businesses looking to expand. Non-traditional credit scoring could help - but is it dependable? A new Harvard study on a crowdsourced credit scoring approach found it predicted defaults with 45 percent greater accuracy than standard credit scores.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- credit scoring, lending
