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African Equity Crowdfunding Portal Launches Call for Applications
Impact-focused equity crowdfunding portal Malaik has launched a call for applications to African entrepreneurs with impact focused businesses, aiming to help connect businesses with investors.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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This Solar Innovation by a Swedish Artist Uses Surprisingly Simple Technology to Save Lives
Petra Wadström, a Swedish designer and artist now in her 60s, doesn’t have an engineering background. Back in 2005, when she came up with the idea for Solvatten—a piece of equipment that makes contaminated water safe to drink—she also didn’t know much about solar power.
- Categories
- Energy, Health Care, Technology
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India Blocks Zuckerberg’s Free Net App
India's telecoms regulator has blocked Facebook's Free Basics internet service app as part of a ruling in favour of net neutrality.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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We Have the Technology to Destroy All Zika Mosquitoes
A controversial genetic technology able to wipe out the mosquito carrying the Zika virus will be available within months, scientists say.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Move Over Facebook: WeChat Is Set to Become the Only App African Internet Users Need
As technology hubs from Silicon Valley to Bangalore work hard at devising digital approaches to finance that could alter the global banking landscape, mobile banking penetration in China has already exceeded390 million people. And for Chinese-owned Tencent Holdings, the world's fifth largest Internet company, China's 1.3 billion-strong market is just the beginning. The tech giant's best-known social network, WeChat, is fast gaining traction in Africa, and mobile banking is one area in which its influence is spreading.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Egyptian Government and Visa Sign Agreement to Help Bring Electronic Payments to Government Subsidies
The Egyptian government, represented by the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade and the Ministry of Planning, this week signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Visa Inc., to enable electronic payment of government subsidies to 22 million Egyptian families.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Viewpoint: How Mobile Banking Can Protect Refugees
“Mean spirited”, “inhumane” and desecrating the spirit of the Refugee Convention are some of the milder criticisms levelled at Denmark’s harsh new asylum laws, passed last week. Among new measures is a decision to strip new arrivals of any cash and valuables worth more than 10,000 kroner (US$1,450), purportedly to pay for their upkeep. Switzerland and some southern German states have introduced similar policies.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
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Your Cheap Solar Lamp is Garbage
It’s easy to think of “the poor” in two-dimensional, homogenous terms and rattle off assumptions like "They’re poor people, aren’t they happy with anything?" or "Isn’t something better than nothing?" Incorrect. As the charity research organization SolarAid once put it, “The quickest way to fix a problem is the best,” and in most cases, that means quality.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Tags
- Base of the Pyramid, solar