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Watch: With Smartphones, Software, Building Better Agricultural Value Chains
Funded by the Gates Foundation, African Cashew Initiative is a $48 million project that aims to raise the incomes of 150,000 smallholder farmers. From Ghana, business software giant SAP is researching how ICT software coupled with smartphones is improving efficiency and trust in the cashew value chain, from farmers to buyers/traders. (With video)
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- Agriculture, Technology, Telecommunications
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Weekly Roundup – 10-23-11: Using Social Media to Innovate from the Bottom Up
Large corporations like Deloitte are learning the internal value of social media. But social media also has huge potential for ventures to fulfill a core component of BoP practice. Involving staff and BoP beneficiaries’ voices throughout the design, piloting and scaling process allows ventures to harness knowledge, spur innovation and reduce costs.
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- Technology
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The Age of Big Data
Where should we build the next road? Can we predict where disease will spread to next? Many disciplines tackle these issues in their own, disparate ways. But according to Nathan Eagle, featured speaker at Columbia Social Enterprise Conference, we’ve entered a new era where that might not always be the case - all thanks to mobile phone data.
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- Technology
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Technology Plus Humanity – An Equation for Social Collaboration
At the 2011 Columbia Social Enterprise Conference panel last week, 3 social enterprise managers pondered technology’s role in the social sector today and how it advances philanthropy. A theme throughout the panel was the importance of incorporating the human experience into the technology, a potential key to unlocking a surge in donor activity.
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- Social Enterprise, Technology
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Aakash: Game Changer or Another Brick in the Wall?
"Aakash," touted to be the world’s cheapest tablet, was launched by the Indian government last week and distributed via pilot program to 500, rual primary school students across India. With the considerable buzz surrounding the $35 device, will the BoP market truly have something to cheer for?
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- Technology
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Friday Roundup – 10/07/11 The Next Steve Jobs …
As the plane landed upon my return from the ANDE Conference, I fired up my iPhone to read a news alert: ?Apple Announces Steve Jobs Has Died.? I flashed back to my old Apple IIe. Who would be the next iconic innovator to bring the power once held up on high to the people? Would their cause be bringing affordable technology to the poor?
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- Technology
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Making the Market VS Making It In the Market, What One Laptop Per Child Can Teach Us
Since its much publicized launch in 2005, Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child program has been both lauded and criticized. In a recent conversation hosted by NYU’s Reynolds Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs, he was steadfast in defending against criticisms about the efficacy of OLPC, but signaled new directions for educating poor children.
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- Technology
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Reaching the Next Billion Through Mobile
As a preview to this week?s Columbia Social Enterprise Conference, I had the pleasure of speaking with mobile technology innovator Nathan Eagle, co-founder and CEO of Jana. Currently generating revenue in over 50 countries, Jana (Sanskrit for ?people?) enables global organizations to directly engage with BoP consumers through mobile phones.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise, Technology