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Know Thy Hospital: Engineers and entrepreneurs are rethinking medical device design, and the world could be healthier as a result
Well-meaning individuals and organizations from high-income countries often donate medical equipment – mostly used – to hospitals in low-resource settings. But it often fails because it isn’t designed for the "predictable unpredictability" of these settings. Mike Miesen argues that we need innovative devices designed for the needs of the customer, not the donor.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- product design
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The Power of Investing in Women: Lessons learned from WIN-WIN
Calvert Foundation and Citi Foundation launched the Women Investing in Women Initiative, or WIN-WIN, on March 8, 2012, International Women’s Day. The initiative aimed to raise and deploy $20 million in capital to empower women and girls around the world. WIN-WIN surpassed this goal in December, and Calvert CEO Jennifer Pryce discusses four lessons learned along the way.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Dasra Philanthropy Week 2014: Urgency in gender equality
Dasra hosted its fifth annual Philanthropy Week from March 5-7. It convened more than 600 prominent philanthropists, corporations and impact investors to catalyze funding to India’s social sector. And as Nilima Achwal explains, Dasra has made a notable strategic shift to focus on adolescent girl empowerment.
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- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Moving India Toward Universal Financial Inclusion: Part 2 of our Q&A with Nachiket Mor
The Nachiket Mor committee report on financial inclusion in India has sparked excitement and debate domestically and around the world. In part two of our Q&A with Mor, we discuss India’s move toward a cashless economy, the need for responsive regulations, and how the committee’s recommendations could impact India’s economy and low-income communities.
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- Uncategorized
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Girl Power: SHOFCO’s tuition-free schools in Kenya linking communities to health services
Shining Hope for Communities, which is creating girls’ schools in Kenyan slums and linking community services to them, has been recognized for making health care more accessible.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
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Human-Centered Design – Common Aspirations, Uncommon Action: Second iteration of the Acumen/IDEO.org course is after social change doers
Acumen and IDEO.org are partnering for a second time to offer Human-Centered Design for Social Innovation. The seven-week course is based on the fundamental belief that gaining a deep understanding of the needs, hopes, and aspirations of potential customers and the lives they live yields incredible inspiration for new solutions. Human-centered designers learn by doing and evolve their solutions based on real-time feedback.
- Categories
- Education
- Tags
- product design
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NexThought Monday – The Dark Side of Reverse Engineering
A key difference between reverse innovation and the earlier work on base of the pyramid strategy is the promise – even expectation – of large and profitable up-market migration for the innovations incubated in the underserved space. This thinking has upsides, and potentially, a very dark side.
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- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup – 3/8/14: Why ‘women’s empowerment’ impacts much more than 51% of the population
This week we didn’t need a bloodhound to pick up on the trail of enterprises and nonprofits that advance the cause of women and girls, advancing the world economy in the process.
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- Uncategorized









