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Decisions, Decisions: How do enterprises choose their markets for clean energy products and services in India?
The off-grid electricity market in India is huge, with over 300 million people living without access to electricity. With such a large market, how do enterprises decide which geographical area to target? Should they focus on a small niche market, or diversify from day one? Sanjoy Sanyal and Pamli Deka of New Ventures India discuss the options and provide advice.
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- Energy, Environment
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Social Entrepreneurship and Global Warming
The consequences of a temperature rise greater than 2°C would be catastrophic for all of humanity, but the greatest impact would be on the planet’s poorest people, who face profound loss from flooding, displacement and food scarcity. Social entrepreneurs are among those best positioned to improve the lives of the poor and mitigate global warming, says Thane Kreiner.
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- Energy, Environment, Social Enterprise
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- renewable energy
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NexThought Monday – Innovation Overkill: Why product innovation in financial inclusion isn’t always the right move
All the renewed talk about product innovation and a client-centric approach in financial inclusion may overlook two important points, says MicroSave’s Graham Wright. First, there are important differences between market leaders and followers. And second, moving through the product development continuum isn’t easy. For some companies, he suggests, it’s better to copy than to innovate.
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup – 7/26/14: Mind the Gap
A lot of exciting news came out of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne this week, but it’s tempered by the reality that in too much of the world, it’s a crime to be a member of the LGBT community. As long as that’s the case, efforts at prevention and treatment will be limited.
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- Health Care
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June’s Most Popular, Most Shared Posts: Failure and Success in Microfinance Products, Wireless Currency and Bold Ideas in Global Health Lead the List
Winston Churchill said: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
NextBillion’s most-read blog post in June explained how failure has helped influence microfinance institutions better understand their customers’ needs.- Categories
- Health Care
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Latrines Made Easy: iDE helping find ways to produce, sell sanitary toilets to the rural poor
Diarrheal disease, increased vulnerability of women, humiliation, discomfort and general unpleasantness were facts of everyday life in much of rural Cambodia, due to a lack of decent latrines. In a period of two years, however, the businesses that iDE works with were able to sell 100,000 latrines, lending new hope to the effort to improve sanitation worldwide.
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- Health Care
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Two Sides of the Same Coin: How India’s microfinance and health sectors can collaborate for greater impact
In countries like India, microfinance can be a valuable tool for providing the financing that the poor need to maintain their health. And for microfinance to achieve its goal of providing financial security to the poor, it has to address health security. Sabina Rogers of the Microcredit Summit Campaign describes how the two sectors could collaborate to expand health care access to hundreds of millions.
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- Education, Health Care
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How Abandoned Houses Are Creating a Golden Opportunity: An Interview With Antonio Díaz, Founder and CEO of Provive
Mexico experienced its own housing boom and bust. More than 7 million homes were constructed in the last decade, thanks in large part to government incentives. But the building wave left more than 600,000 abandoned homes, hot spots for drug abuse and vagrancy. Provive, a social impact enterprise that both renovates houses and revitalizes entire communities, is improving property values with an eye toward profit.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- interviews, lending
