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Africa innovations: 15 ideas helping to transform a continent
A mobile phone database for dairy farmers and a strain of sweet potato that can help fight child blindness. These are just two of the imaginative new ideas that are tackling Africa's old problems
- Categories
- Agriculture, Impact Assessment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Ideas man: professor in quest for India’s rural inventions
t's 43 degrees Celsius, and Prof. Anil Gupta has been hiking the scorched plains of central India for hours. But he smiles widely as he enters a tiny village in search of another unsung genius. "If you have any new ideas or you have any new inventions, I'm here to promote you," he tells farmers squatting beside a dusty roadside shrine to Lord Shiva.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- South Asia
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Growing Rwanda Out of Poverty
For the last few years, development wonks and international organizations have had the “Green Revolution for Africa” on their radars. Leaders in Africa have recognized that the first Green Revolution (spurred by the work of agronomist Norman Borlaug) resulted in massive improvements in health and productivity around the world, and are now looking to do the same on the so-called “Dark Continent”.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Water harvesting slakes thirst at an innovative Kenyan inn
When Gaitano Likhavila was still working as an accountant at the provincial hospital in the west Kenyan town of Kakamega, he ran into a situation that got him thinking about water.“There was a serious water shortage that made the hospital administration almost close down the hospital. At the same time, a lot of rainwater from the roofs was wasted, running down to the River Isikhu, but nobody thought of getting hold of this free water,” says Likhavila.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Voxtra invests in Mtanga Farms Limited
The Voxtra East Africa Agribusiness Fund (Voxtra) has completed an investment of US$ 1.5 million in Mtanga Farms Limited (MFL), a commercial farm engaged in seed crops, arable farming and livestock.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- impact investing
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From Hotel Uniforms To Life-Saving Water Filters: Evolving The Humanitarian Entrepreneurship Model
In recent years, investments in global public health have created opportunities for private innovators, technology developers, and business investors to join the fight against infectious diseases affecting people in developing countries. Such private entities are focusing their innovative platforms on developing technological breakthroughs for the most vulnerable people, often in the most extreme situations. As a result, a new business model, "humanitarian entrepreneurship," is being shaped by innovators at all levels. Here, doing good is good for business.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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CEOs urge Rio+20 leaders to make water security top priority
AFP - Some 45 corporate chiefs attending the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development on Monday pledged to make water security a strategic priority and called for decisive action by governments.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
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Can This New Backpack Solve The World’s Water Woes?
You may not have heard of Greif, but you’re probably familiar with its products. One of the largest industrial packaging companies in the world, Greif makes plastic drums, fiber drums, water bottles for water coolers, steel containers, and more. The companies that buy certain Greif products--like the drums that hold hazardous chemicals--are the same ones that may inadvertently poison people in the developing world who use those containers to transport water after they’ve been thrown out. And so it makes a certain kind of sense that Greif would step up to create a solution, dubbed WaterWear, that allows people to safely and easily carry gallons of clean water.
- Categories
- Agriculture