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SELCO: A Business, Ongoing Case Study in Solar-Powered Social Impact
SELCO, a social enterprise traditionally focused on providing solar energy to the rural underserved, has launched a new urban model in India that has helped electrify a set of slum-dwelling households in Bangalore. The early success has been less about the feat of solar power in slums, and more about creating a ripple effect for social impact.
- Categories
- Energy, Impact Assessment
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Wedding Bells? A Matchmaking Business Model for Franchise Networks, National Insurance Plans
Franchising private clinics is an exciting approach for improving the quality and affordability of private health services delivered to the poor. A marriage of national health insurance and franchise networks would offer a new vision for health systems in developing countries, in a sustainable model that could dramatically expand access.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Citizen Media: A Global Innovation Competition Produces a New Class of Media Solutions for Empowered
In the past year, there has been a surge in the number of everyday citizens harnessing innovations in media to amplify their voices and create change around the world. When Ashoka Changemakers launched the Citizen Media competition with support from Google, more than 400 entries poured in from around the globe. There’s still time to vote!
- Categories
- Technology
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Weekly Round-up 11-20-11: HealthPoint’s Push to Meet, Exceed Expectations
In a little more than two years, HealthPoint has created a network of medical clinics and clean water access points, providing 22,000 medical consultations, filling 28,000 prescriptions, and assisting more than 50,000 people a day with drinking water. This growth propelled the initial clinics to positive cash flow in the first quarter of 2011.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
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Three Decades in the Making, How the Aravind Model Came into Focus
At the core of Aravind's success is a strong culture of service, an attitude of daily work, not as a mechanical endeavor, but as work in service of self and community. This central ethic permeates the Aravind workforce and drives its mission. But how does a culture of service, where many patients are treated for free, add up to good business?
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- Health Care
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Building an Egypt@Work, a Focus on Skills and Entrepreneurship
NGO Nahdet El Mahrousa and The International Youth Foundation (IYF), in partnership with MasterCard Foundation, recently launched Egypt@Work ? a program focusing on eliminating youth unemployment and promoting entrepreneurship in Egypt. Egypt@Work is collaborating with local NGOs, donors and the private sector to provide training and workshops.
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- Uncategorized
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D-Rev’s Design Sense: Connecting World-Class Products With World Needs
Krista Donaldson, CEO of Design Revolution, says innovators need to be flexible. D-Rev visited hundreds of clinics and hostels when designing "Brilliance," which uses blue light to treat newborn jaundice that can lead disability or death. "We found that the need we originally identified was not actually the most practical place to start."
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- Health Care
- Tags
- product design
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The Beauty of Bricks and Mortar: Low-cost Housing as a Foundation for Impact
At Acumen Fund, we feel it is high time for the dynamic to change - for the social enterprise sector to recognize the need to catalyze and support affordable housing across emerging markets. But we know there are forces working against us that cause housing to be treated like the forgotten stepchild of the social enterprise sector.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- housing, impact investing
