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Addressing Eye Care in Emerging Markets with Blended Finance
WHO estimates that 39 million people suffer from blindness, more than half of them due to cataracts, and more than 90 percent of blind people live in the developing world. Cataracts are often curable but the traditional surgery is expensive. Convergence is supporting GlobalVision's plan to build on the affordable eye model that Aravind pioneered in India and establish a network of 60 eye care hospitals in emerging markets over the next 10 years, borrowing techniques from the microfinance sector.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Huawei Agrees to Deal to Help African Expats Send Money Home
The deal will let Huawei and WorldRemit tap into growing demand for money transfers from Africans living abroad using mobile-payments services, which are popular in places where banks are scarce or unreliable.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- remittances
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This phone solves one of tech’s biggest frustrations by removing the need for a battery
In an attempt to deliver a long-term solution, researchers at the University of Washington are exploring what happens if we remove batteries from smartphones altogether.
- Categories
- Technology
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No more empty stocks: Contraceptives reach rural women thanks to pioneering logistics system
“It is free - no need to pay. Better still, I am also told that from now on I can get it regularly in my home when the mobile health team visits my village. We can now start family planning. It is very good for us”, says Nan Aye Aye Lwin.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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A new wave of tech talent is emerging, not from India’s classrooms but its hinterlands
Despite finishing school and college, Mandal couldn’t find stable employment in his village in West Midnapur district of India’s West Bengal state.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Japan vows to ramp up efforts to export renewable energy technology
Emphasizing that energy demand will only grow in China and Southeast Asia, Kishida noted in a message read to a symposium hosted by the ministry in Tokyo that "Japan's environmental technologies will greatly contribute to Asian nations' (transition)."
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- renewable energy
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Google entering mobile payments in India, will soon give Paytm, Airtel competition
AP Hota, CEO and managing director of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), told reporters at conference in Bengaluru on Monday that Google has almost completed testing its UPI (Unified Payments Interface)-based payment service, which allows fast and easy transfer of money from one bank account to another through mobile.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments
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Cyber-threats increase as India goes cashless: Study
As India shifts to a cashless economy, cyber-threats are at a new high with the number of such incidents occurring in banking systems increasing in the last five years.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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