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Viewpoint: Cloud Computing Could Be Key to Speeding up Africa’s Development
What’s especially useful about cloud computing is that companies or organisations don’t need to own computing infrastructure or data centres. Instead, they can rent access to storage and applications, among other things, from a cloud service provider. This allows them to get access to sophisticated capabilities on demand. And they don’t have to spend a great deal of money building and maintaining IT infrastructure on site.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- data, global development, SDGs
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Press Release: Fintech Nomanini Raises $4M in Funding Round Led by Standard Bank
Through the terms of the strategic investment, Standard Bank gains a stake in the company and the ability to use Nomanini’s platform to unearth previously ‘invisible’ data on the informal retail economy.
- Source
- Press release
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Is Your Data Collection Program Ready to Go Mobile? Four Steps (And a Free Guide) to Help You Get Started
From decision support to enhanced communication with beneficiaries, mobile data collection can be an incredibly useful tool for impact-based organizations. But for all its benefits, it's no silver bullet, cautions Sam Farnham at Dimagi. Farnham stresses the importance of doing due diligence on collection methods before moving onto digital tools, and offers a free guide for determining mobile data collection's relevance for your organization in this constructive post.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- data, digital inclusion
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Study: Mobile and Social Media Users in Emerging Markets Have More Diverse Social Networks
Instead of isolation, the study found that smartphone users in these markets, and particularly those who also used social media, were more regularly exposed to people with different racial and ethnic backgrounds, different religious preferences, different political parties and different income levels, compared to those without a smartphone.
- Categories
- Technology
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In Sierra Leone, New Kiva Protocol Uses Blockchain to Benefit Unbanked
The National Civil Registration Commission developed the national digital identity platform with support from Kiva, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that allows people to lend money to low-income people around the world, as well as the United Nations Capital Development Fund and the United Nations Development Programme.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Why More Tech Companies Are Launching ‘Lite’ Apps
With 6.47 billion people living in developing economies, there’s a lot of potential for technology firms to tap on — but they need to take a different approach because of technological limitations, according to analysts.
- Categories
- Technology
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Unlocking the Medical Equipment Donation Ecosystem: Is a Blockchain Marketplace the Solution?
Every year hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical equipment is donated to hospitals in emerging markets, only to remain unused due to lack of knowledge, parts or maintenance. According to Vikas Meka, a blockchain-based donation platform could help – but it would be difficult to entice stakeholders to use it. He explores a solution: A token-driven marketplace that could unlock new social and economic value in the medical equipment donation ecosystem.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
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Surviving the ‘Valley of Death’: A New Funding Database Aims to Help Agtech Companies Avoid Early-Stage Failure
Population growth and climate change are bringing extraordinary challenges to the agriculture sector in emerging markets. But though small- and medium-sized enterprises are essential to addressing these issues, they remain underfunded – particularly in the period before they become profitable (often referred to as the ‘‘Valley of Death’’). Aarno Keijzer at NpM explores these challenges, and presents a free database that NpM has compiled, highlighting funds that can help early-stage agriculture companies bridge this financial gap.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Tags
- agtech, business development, data, failure