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A 5 Billion Mobile Workforce
This past month, in Armenia, Kenya, Nepal, South Africa, and Vietnam, the World Bank organized hackathons bringing together over 300 mobile phone technologists and entrepreneurs. The gatherings focused on leveraging the spread of mobile phones to three-quarters of the world to connect excluded populations to the digital economy.
- Categories
- Technology
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How to boost adoption of mobile health care, by report
MORE doctors in developed and emerging markets have identified adoption of mobile technology in healthcare as an inevitable means to boost health care services.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The dawn of e-microfinance
It doesn’t look like Primiya Bai Rout, a vegetable cultivator in Salebhata village of Odisha, belongs in cyberspace. Yet, there she is, with a profile that nestles right next to Niharika Padia’s from New York. It is an unlikely pairing, but what has made it possible is a loan of Rs 400, given by Padia to Rout, so she can finance her vegetable business, thanks to Rangde — an online platform that enables people like Niharika to choose borrowers like Rout from a list of microloan seekers in the most remote corners of India.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Early stage investment growing in Africa tech
The rise of technology hubs over the last couple of years has spurred investment, helped by humanitarian agencies and VCs
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Another Online Hub? Here’s Why We Tried Something Different : The Business Innovation Facility and IAP database is a one-stop-shop for social entrepreneurs
A new Database of Financial and Technical Support for Inclusive Business aims to reduce the time and challenge involved. Produced by the Business Innovation Facility (BIF) and Innovations Against Poverty (IAP), it’s a step towards a ‘one-stop shop’ for IB entrepreneurs.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise, Technology
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NexThought Monday: The Future of Crowdfunding Depends on Avoiding Past Missteps
For small and growing businesses that have the potential to create social and environmental change, financing is not easy to come by. Impact investing is on the rise, but the cost of doing risky deals in faraway lands remains prohibitive for investors, especially when deal sizes are small and returns remain minimal. As investors and thought leaders wrestle with these issues, a new potential solution has arisen: crowdfunding.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- impact investing
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How the Aakash tablet bounced back
Internet-connected tablets, as I’ve explained before, have the potential to positively impact billions. Cell phones improved commerce and changed society by allowing, among other things, the poorest villagers in the developing world to connect with one another. The Internet will catalyze the next leap forward by providing those in the developing world access to the same ocean of knowledge as those in wealthier societies. This will transform education and revolutionize commerce.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- product design
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LendmeMula introduces ZimSwitch enabled MulaConnect card
One of the issues with the LendmeMula micro-credit service that we have covered here before, is that so far borrowers have had to wait for up to 24 hours before they could access the borrowed money in their bank accounts. The money had to be transferred by Lendme to their bank accounts. This made the process somewhat slow, and where a borrower did not have a bank ATM card, they had to pray they could access their money before the banks closed their doors.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa