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How the Developing World is Using Cellphone Technology to Change Lives
In Nigeria, a young girl can ask questions about sex discretely through SMS and get accurate information.After the earthquake in Haiti, survivors in remote towns could receive money for food straight to their cellphone.In Senegal, election monitors sent updates on polling stations through their mobile phones, revising an online map in real time with details about late openings or worse.Projects like Learning about Living in Nigeria, MercyCorps in Haiti and Senevote2012 in Senegal are just a few examples of how the rapid spread of mobile technology has changed life in the global south.
- Categories
- Technology
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From ‘A-Ha’ to Impact: Making it to Market
But like many “breakthrough” innovations such as digital cameras, tablets, and Apple’s pinch-and-zoom screen function (born in 1983), social impact technologies often languish before really reaching the market.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise, Technology
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Finding the Line Between Technical and Political Solutions to Water Challenges
Technology can increase access to water and sanitation; other solutions seem to hinge on policy. But are the two areas distinct?
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Technology
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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MobiPrize: Moving Minds, Moving the Urban Poor
If you are a social entrepreneur who has an innovative and replicable solution to local and global transportation challenges, you are eligible to win the MobiPrize: US $5,000 and a trip to Rio+20 (the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, June 20-22, in Rio de Janeiro) and top-notch mentorship sessions with global experts in sectors relevant to transportation, livable and sustainable communities, business and social enterprise.
- Categories
- Technology, Transportation
- Tags
- transportation
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Selling to the World’s Poor Offers Huge Potential
It might seem counterintuitive, but setting your sights on the world’s four billion poorest people can be remarkably lucrative. Just ask Suneet Singh Tuli. The CEO of wireless-device manufacturer DataWind Ltd. says his Montreal-based company’s revenue could soar from less than $10 million last year to more than $300 million next year, thanks to the stripped-down tablet computer it developed to sell in India: “It’s an astonishing rate of growth.”
- Categories
- Technology
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How Mobile Technology Can Help BoP Women Get Ahead
“Portraits: A Glimpse into the Lives of Women at the Base of the Pyramid,” a report released at last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is the first to survey the wants, needs, aspirations and mobile uses of women living at the base of the pyramid (BoP), defined as those living on less than $2 a day, according to the GSM Association.
- Categories
- Technology
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Big Idea: Why Hands-On Regulation of Mobile Money Could Be Dangerous
There’s a very simple imperative driving the tariff structure and every other decision that determines access to mobile money: cost recovery. This is more than a cold-hearted calculation by mobile network operators’ accountants. If rural mobile money agents, who generally operate as independent contractors, cannot profit from this role, there will be no rural agents and no mobile money service.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
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ADB Plans to Invest $100M in Environment Fund
The Asian Development Bank is expected to invest about $100 million in a multinational fund that will be put up to boost investments in environment-related technologies and projects in developing countries like the Philippines.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific