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A New Silicon Valley? Tech Hubs Spring Up in Africa
Internet access is expanding rapidly across the continent, and with it new organizations are coming to help foster a budding tech startup scene.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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In Chile’s Slums, A Lesson in How to Make Apps for Social Good
How many of the hundreds of thousands of mobile phone applications seek to do truly great things, such as lift people out of poverty or improve health care for the poor?
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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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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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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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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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
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Now for some good news:Two books argue that the future is brighter than we think
The lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a small device with a huge potential. It can run dozens of diagnostic tests on human DNA in a few minutes. Give the device a gob of spit or a drop of blood and it will tell you whether or not you are sick without any need to send your DNA to a laboratory. In poor countries LOCs could offer diagnostics to millions who lack access to expensive laboratories. In the rich world they may curb rising medical costs.
- Categories
- Health Care, Impact Assessment, Technology
- Tags
- public health