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Shell-Backed Solar Company Bets on Phone Banking for Africa
M-KOPA Kenya Ltd., backed by a Royal Dutch Shell Plc-funded charity, sees sales of its solar-lighting system that allows users to pay by phone surging 13-fold as mobile operators roll out banking services in Africa.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- solar
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Making mobiles for the masses
Fancy freshly brewed coffee in the morning, but don’t like the inconvenience of getting out of bed? Then you might want to get your hands on the wi-fi enabled coffee maker from chip-maker Qualcomm, which allows you to drip start your brew from your phone or tablet.
- Categories
- Technology
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Meet MicroMentor, a Free ‘Dating’ Site for Business Mentorship
A business networking site might seem like an odd duck in the portfolio of its owner, Mercy Corps, an international NGO. But MicroMentor provides an affordable solution, especially for microentrepreneurs from low-income backgrounds. It’s already served more than 10,000 entrepreneurs.
- Categories
- Technology
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Extreme By Design: Film tracks the world’s biggest little ideas
“Extreme By Design,” a documentary produced and co-directed by Ralph King, was screened at Mercy Corps’ global headquarters in Portland for a public audience in early February. The film follows the journey of a group of students who design and build products to solve seemingly intractable problems of the world’s poor.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- product design
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Customer Loyalty for Social Impact
With pay-as-you-go plans being relatively inexpensive, the poor in both rural and urban settings are able to afford the conveniences of a basic mobile phone. They can use their mobile phone to take care of business-related activities, and to access a growing number of mobile applications that make routine tasks (like personal banking) less cumbersome. For the urban poor in particular, mobile technology has become a useful tool in daily life.
- Categories
- Technology
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Full speed ahead: AfDB’s plan for a Pan-African information highway
The African Development Bank has installed a common information technology platform in 13 countries and the African Union Commission.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Game Changer?: The campaign to train one million African health workers – Part 2
The One Million Community Health Workers campaign is launching an ambitious effort to achieve the UN’s Millenium Development Goals in health care - in one of the world’s most impoverished regions. In part 2 of our interview, project co-chair Dr. Prabhjot Singh discusses the ways the initiative could impact business development.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Tags
- public health
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Game Changer?: The campaign to train one million African health workers – Part 1
With uneven progress and the 2015 deadline approaching, some have already written off the UN’s Millenium Development Goals as unreachable. But the One Million Community Health Workers campaign is making a final push to actually achieve them in health care - in one of the world’s most impoverished regions. The project’s co-chair, Dr. Prabhjot Singh, describes the initiative’s approach (and its risks) in part one of our interview.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Tags
- public health
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