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Weekly Roundup – The Indispensable Platform: The growing importance of mobile access to businesses that serve the poor
With over 50 percent of people in the developing world having access to a cell phone, mobile access has become an indispensable platform for businesses and services focused on the BoP. We discuss its impact and potential in this week’s Roundup.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Energy, Impact Assessment, Technology, Telecommunications
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Cashless Education: How mobile money helps Bridge International Academies deliver quality for-profit education for $6 a month – Part 5 in our Digital Finance Plus series
Bridge International Academies has integrated mobile money fully into its business. All of the school’s 300+ branches accept no cash, using mobile money for school fees, student lunch purchases, payments to staff and vendors, and expense reimbursements. In part 5 of our Digital Finance Plus series, Marie Leznicki explains how going cashless helps Bridge maintain its customer focus.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Niches for Social Enterprises: How hybrid-model social enterprises cluster in Kenya and Vietnam
A review by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), of social enterprise activity in the agriculture and health sectors of Kenya and Vietnam found that hybrid-model social enterprises cluster in niches that mainstream business and state provision do not reach. Identifying and understanding these context-specific niches could hold the key to effective support of social enterprise activities.
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- Education, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- research
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Check Out a Replay of Our Latest Google Hangout : A Q&A with the winners of the 2014 Case Writing Competition
As you may have heard, earlier this week we announced the top five winners in the fourth NextBillion Case Writing Competition, sponsored by the Citi Foundation. Now it’s time to hear from the scholars and contributors behind the winning cases.
- Categories
- Education
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Leveraging Loyalty: How m.Paani is mobilizing BoP consumer behavior for social good – Part 4 of our Digital Finance Plus series
Whether they’re frequent flyer miles or credit card rewards points, loyalty programs are a mutually beneficial way for companies to build relationships with customers. m.Paani is using digital finance tools to take that model in a new direction, by connecting BoP households’ commercial and social behaviors to points that can be redeemed for socially beneficial rewards.
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- Health Care, Impact Assessment, Technology
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The Social Network for Smallholder Farmers : From fertilizer tips to the best seeds, connecting farmers to accurate info
LISA is a mobile social network platform for registered farmers to ask agriculture experts and other farmers questions through SMS (text) messages. It was created by Mercy Corps’ partner 8Villages as part of the aid agency’s Agri-Fin Mobile program.
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- Agriculture, Technology
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Lease-to-Own Energy: Part 3 of our Digital Finance Plus series explores how mobile money is enabling affordable off-grid solar energy solutions
With 1.3 billion living without electricity worldwide, the need for off-grid energy solutions is massive. In Part 3 of our Digital Finance Plus series, Peter Glenn of Fenix International describes how the company uses mobile finance to provide an innovative payment plan that helps make solar energy affordable to people in emerging markets.
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- Energy, Environment
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Immunization Support Expiring for Some: GAVI, partners aim to help countries achieve successful ‘graduation’
The GAVI Alliance has helped some of the world’s poorest countries immunize their children. Soon, several of these countries are scheduled to "graduate" from this support. These countries will face a variety of challenges, but they’re already getting help planning for the transition.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
- Tags
- governance, infrastructure, vaccines
