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An Open Letter to Larry Page: Paul Polak urges Google CEO to invest in for-profit poverty alleviation
Google CEO Larry Page recently said he’d rather hand over his cash to Elon Musk, of Tesla, than donate it to a philanthropic organization. In an open letter, social entrepreneurship veteran Paul Polak suggests a third way for Google to make money and help the poor.
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NexThought Monday – Making the Food Trade Work for All: On Cesar Chavez Day, approaches to growing quality food that uphold human dignity
Whether it’s a pineapple farm in Costa Rica or an apple farm in North America, farm workers can often find themselves a part of a globally marginalized, transient and largely invisible workforce that brings us our food each day. Just as the issues in our global food systems cannot be addressed by problem-solving in one region alone, restoring pride and dignity to the American farm worker also requires a far more global perspective and approach.
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- Agriculture
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Weekly Roundup – 3/29/14: Blurred Lines in Banking – the changing definition of “bank” at the BoP
The Internet has reshaped banking in the U.S., where half of the population hasn’t entered a bank branch in the past month. This evolution has been even more dramatic at the BoP, where mobile and branchless banking services are making brick-and-mortar banks increasingly obsolete. We take a look at these changes in this week’s Roundup.
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Breathing Life Into Ethiopian Health Care: Firm aims ‘to set the bar as high as possible’ as country’s only medical device manufacturer
There were no medical device manufacturing companies in Ethiopia. That is, until Tiffani Diage, Fasil Kiros and Birhanu Assefa Belay found the funding for a start-up firm to make mechanical resuscitation devices.
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- Health Care
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Can Digital Currencies Change the World?: Bitcoin is a tech-savvy alternative to traditional payment systems, but could it meet the needs of the financially excluded?
Riding on the Bitcoin hype, a legion of techno-optimists believes that digital crypto-currencies have the potential to transform ineffective global payment systems, and ultimately spur global financial inclusion. But will digital currencies such as Bitcoin truly change the global payment infrastructure and bring financial access to millions?
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- Technology
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Featured Event: Sankalp Unconvention Summit 2014: There’s still time for NB readers to register at a discount
Sankalp Unconvention Summit 2014 is set for April 9-11 at Hotel Renaissance, Powai, in Mumbai. NextBillion is serving as a media partner for this year’s summit, and there’s still time for NextBillion readers to register by using the discount code: NXTBSUS. The summit is the flagship event of Intellecap’s in-house initiative, Sankalp Forum, a platform for social entrepreneurs.
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- impact investing
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The Right Way to Talk About Money: Ignacio Mas discusses the impact words can have on financial behaviors at the BoP
Words can have a major impact on the way people think and feel about their money, says Ignacio Mas. In this Q&A with Mercy Corps’ Kyla Yeoman, he discusses how financial service providers should take customers’ psychological needs into account when designing products - and how the words used to describe these products can affect the way they’re used.
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How Business Can Lift People Out Of Poverty: 4 insights from the world’s best social entrepreneurs
How do you profitably sell to a customer who earns less than $2 per day?
It is probably the most daunting business question in the world — as well as the most important, because that’s the earning power of nearly one third of humanity. The challenge is immense. And yet a new kind of entrepreneur is springing up who sees things differently, for whom business is the best way to fight poverty.- Categories
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