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Discussing Disqus, the Next Step in NB?s Interactive Community
Next week, we hope to drastically reduce NextBillion’s diet of spam, and more importantly, take the NextBillion community to the next level of interaction. We’ll migrate NextBillion’s existing commenting system to Disqus,an open-source commenting platform that is used by many large publishers, including CNN, Engadget and Mashable.
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In Search of Innovation: Flexible Capital
From Omidyar’s perspective, innovation in philanthropy can be amplified through a "flexible capital" approach, one that at times leaves the familiarity of grant making and enters the field of investing. This approach considers a variety of funding instruments as potential tools to address a social problem.
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- Agriculture
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Gold Stars: The Best of November on NextBillion
The ancient proverb, "you never step in the same river twice" also applies to blogs like NextBillion, where our content tends to flow fast. In an attempt to highlight some great posts before they are digitally washed downstream, I’d like pause at the beginning of each month to call out some of best of NextBillion for the previous month.
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Peace Dividend’s P2P Model For Financing Entrepreneurs in Post-Conflict Sudan
Building on microfinance approaches to informal loan markets, Peace Dividend is charting a new course in post-conflict Southern Sudan. Founder Melody Atil says the model directly connects borrowers to lenders through peer-to-peer networks, making it more flexible and with greater potential to operate at a larger scale than donor-funded programs.
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- Education
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- academia
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Rewind: A Closer Look Wharton Social Impact Conference
Bart Houlihan, head of B Lab and an expert in what makes a social business and what doesn’t, was an ideal presenter to kick off the The Wharton Social Impact Conference last month. B Lab’s impact-rating system served as the basis for the Global Impact Investing Rating System. Creating "common dictionary" was the buzz phrase for many in attendance.
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Why Hybrid Value Chains Matter
How do numerous stakeholders tap into and leverage the power of the social entrepreneur for social good? Ashoka’s answer is the Hybrid Value Chain. The most interesting aspect of the HVC model isn’t that they tend to work best when the market opportunity is $100 million or above. Rather it’s the "mutually beneficial" relationship that is created.
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Will Prizes Help Fight TB and Other Neglected Diseases?
Global prizes have stimulated breakthroughs in areas as diverse as mathematics, agriculture and space flight - but there is less experience in the global health arena. Now, several advocates have proposed using prizes as a way to spur affordable medical innovations for neglected diseases, including development of tuberculosis diagnostics.
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iuMAP: The Next Level of Micro-credit is Distributor Finance
Many social enterprises focused on BoP customers rely on independent or franchised distributors that also are from poor communities and need financing to cover startup equipment and inventory costs. Given the urgency to scale solutions, finding workable ways to fund distribution systems is a critically important - but difficult - endeavor.
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