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Bringing IT Jobs to Rural India: Betting long on India’s youth
In many BoP markets, there is a gap between the talent requirements of employers and the skills of candidates in the job market. Half of India’s 1.2 billion people are under the age of 25, yet only a privileged few will complete advanced studies and be considered employable by the IT sector. Impact sourcing firm iMerit is turning that dynamic into a strength.
- Categories
- Technology
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Vittana to “cease to exist as a standalone organization”: The education-focused P2P microlender will wind down in its current form, its CEO says
“One of our founding beliefs was that once we reached scale, we could do our work sustainably, without shifting costs and risk onto the students,” wrote CEO Robin Wolander in announcing Vittana’s wind-down. “But after five years ... we haven’t found a robust business model to wean ourselves off that support.”
- Categories
- Education
- Tags
- lending, microfinance
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The Eternal Struggle of Microfinance: The Microcredit Summit raised questions about the sector’s future – but does anyone have an answer?
As last week’s Microcredit Summit wrapped up in Mexico, the topics of over-indebtedness and high interest rates reared their ugly heads. The final day served up a riveting debate that pitted a representative of a Mexican microfinance network against one of the sector’s most vocal critics. The questions raised were crucial to the future of microfinance - but the answers remain elusive.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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SOCAP14 Takeaways: Scaling Impact: Standardization, collaboration and funding for long-term impact
Housing and sanitation: Perhaps no two sectors have greater potential for substantial impact on the many complex problems facing humanity – if their solutions are scaled. And just how to do that, and to know you’re doing it through metrics tools, was an ongoing theme at SOCAP14.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Ideas to Practice, Pilots to Strategy: World Economic Forum report shares best practices and lessons learned from impact investing innovators
Impact investing is a rapidly growing sector that’s generating a lot of knowledge, yet this expertise is spread among dozens if not hundreds of practitioners and academics. Last week, the World Economic Forum released the second edition in its series “Ideas to Practice, Pilots to Strategy” with the goal of democratizing and disseminating this expertise.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing
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Peer-to-Peer Learning: CHMI program will provide up to $8,000 to facilitate partnerships
The Center for Health Market Innovations is launching a peer-to-peer program, the CHMI Learning Exchange, designed to help organizations share knowledge around a particular need or business practice.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care, Impact Assessment
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Financial Capability isn’t Built in a Day: Can a secured credit card help entrepreneurs build credit and positive financial behaviors?
Can a secured credit card help entrepreneurs build credit and positive financial behaviors? FIELD at the Aspen Institute wrestled with this question as part of an 18-month initiative called the Asset Building through Credit pilot, funded by the Citi Foundation. FIELD director Joyce Klein, with Luz Gomez, discuss the research and its implications.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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The Trouble With Dirt: Floors can make people sick, so EarthEnable’s founders came up with a market-based solution, but are still testing models
Dirt floors in the developing world make people sick. Replacing those floors with concrete isn’t the answer, as it is prohibitively expensive. EarthEnable’s solution: locally sourced, earthen floors that are 75 percent cheaper than the concrete alternative.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
