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The End of Typing: The Next Billion Mobile Users Will Rely on Video and Voice
The internet’s global expansion is entering a new phase, and it looks decidedly unlike the last one. Instead of typing searches and emails, a wave of newcomers—“the next billion,” the tech industry calls them—is avoiding text, using voice activation and communicating with images. They are a swath of the world’s less-educated, online for the first time thanks to low-end smartphones, cheap data plans and intuitive apps that let them navigate despite poor literacy.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Forget the Sexy ‘Innovations’: Build (and Monitor) More Water Pipes
Annie Feighery is CEO of mWater, an M&E and data management platform that is used in 147 countries to track water sources. In this insightful Q&A, she says, "The only way it is feasible to achieve global access to safe water is through systems" such as piped infrastructure and small-scale water treatment and distribution units. "The majority of the water-stressed (people) on the planet live within a kilometer of a piped network. They don’t need wells, they need to be part of the infrastructure."
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- Health Care, Technology
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India ranks behind five African countries in Financial and Digital Inclusion says Brookings study
While at first glance it may sound disappointing that India lags behind five African countries in Financial and Digital inclusion, a closer look at the data reveals great news for Indian companies which are in the financial services and the digital space.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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How Blockchain Is Kickstarting the Financial Lives of Refugees
Finland’s digital money system for asylum seekers shows what blockchain technology can offer the unbanked.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
- Tags
- blockchain, fintech, refugees
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Report says India is about to overtake China’s fintech
At more than twice the global average, China is currently the world leader in fintech service adoption, but current second-place India is expected to surpass its neighbor according to a report by EY (formerly Ernst & Young), a global accounting and consulting firm.
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- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Aadhaar Pay yet to find base in India
Going beyond knowing your customer (KYC) application, have payments via Aadhaar taken off? According to recent figures, a majority of Indians are still using Aadhaar only for e-KYC verification and not day-to-day payments.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Fintech can cut remittance costs to a fraction
An estimated 800m people around the world are now directly reliant on remittances. According to research by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, global remittances to developing countries increased by 51% between 2007 and 2016 to reach almost half a trillion dollars a year – although the number of migrant workers from the countries in question rose by only 28% over the period in question.
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- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- fintech, remittances
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The gap between India’s richer and poorer states is widening
East Asia’s growth pattern has for decades been likened to a skein of geese, from Japan at the vanguard to laggards such as Myanmar at the rear. The same pattern can often be seen within big countries. Over the past decade, for example, China’s poorer provinces have grown faster than their wealthier peers. India is different. Far from converging, its states are getting ever more unequal. A recent shake-up in the tax system might even make matters worse.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia