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Toilet Could Turn Urine Into Electricity at Refugee Camps
An innovative urinal could turn pee into a source of electricity. Driven to find a way to protect women and girls in refugee camps who are often assaulted when they go to the bathroom at night, researchers at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) have devised a urinal that lights up when a person uses it.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Health Care
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Pay-As-You-Go Solar Power Takes Off in Africa
In Kenya the cell phone is being used to transform the way that people consume energy. M-KOPA Solar – the word 'kopa' is Swahili for 'borrowed' – is a Nairobi-based business that has pioneered the idea of "pay-as-you-go" solar energy in Africa.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, solar
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51 Breakthrough Technologies to Defeat Poverty
Simple technologies like Kenya's M-Pesa mobile money system can have a huge impact in the developing world. Offering something genuinely new, reliable and, above all, cheap, they can stitch together communities, catalyze markets, improve economies, and ultimately change lives.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
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Inside Citi’s Plan to Deploy $100 Billion for Cities, Renewables, Climate
Today, Citi, the global banking giant, is announcing its next-gen sustainability strategy that includes an eye-popping number: $100 billion over 10 years for “lending, investing and facilitating” activities focused on mitigating climate and other sustainability solutions.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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Impact Investor Global Partnerships Invests in Solar to Connect the Poor With Light
To this day, an estimated 1.3 billion people do not have access to electricity. That is over a billion people who struggle to refrigerate their food and medicine, study at night to further their education, or charge their mobile phones. Electricity is crucial to human well-being and development, and lack of access to it is a huge barrier to overcoming poverty in the developing world.
- Categories
- Energy
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Premature Innovation: What happens when a social entrepreneur has a great business idea in a market that isn’t ready for it?
Mauricio Monjaras Cabañas founded GRIMA Biodiesel at the age of 21, a social enterprise that aimed to produce renewable fuel from castor beans. The fuel was touted as cheaper than diesel, better for the environment, and a boon to local farmers. But when he tried to launch his business, complications quickly set in. He discusses his struggles in this post, the latest in our series on social enterprise failures.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment
- Tags
- renewable energy
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Shell Foundation May Invest $75 Million in Clean Energy in India Over Next 5 Years
Shell Foundation, an independent charity set up by Anglo-Dutch energy group Shell, plans to allocate about half of its $150 million deployable funds in India's clean energy sector over the next five years, a top official said. The foundation may not invest the funds directly into projects but in for-profit companies or financial institutes, which will in turn invest in solutions to make cheap energy options accessible in rural and urban poor areas. "We want to take a marketbased approach where we can fund or forward grants to companies who are directly or indirectly providing the bottom of the pyramid with access to energy," said Pradeep Pursnani, deputy director-chief operating officer at Shell Foundation.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
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Greenlight Planet Receives Funding of $10 Million
Solar energy product company Greenlight Planet has raised $10 million (Rs in funding led by Fidelity Growth Partners India to support its distribution expansion efforts in India and Southeast Asia.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- impact investing, solar