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Vodafone M-Pesa Reaches 25 Million Customers Milestone
Vodafone M-Pesa now has more than 25 million active customers, marking another year of accelerated growth for the innovative mobile money transfer service, it was announced today.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- fintech
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Closing the Gap on Vaccine Efficacy in the ‘Global South’
Vaccines and antibiotics occupy a privileged position in the history of medicine. They are humanity’s “magic bullets” — categories of intervention so effective and easy to deliver that they have the capacity to single-handedly eradicate entire diseases from human history. But just as the heady utopia of an antibiotic age has given way to the cold, evolutionary reality of antibiotic resistance, we must now also confront the pervasive problem of vaccine failure in the global South.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- vaccines
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Consuelo Offers Blockchain-Powered Microinsurance to Migrant Workers
Bitcoin and blockchain technology have the ability to bring financial services to the unbankedthat otherwise would be unavailable to them. Mexican mobile payments platform Saldo.mxallows to pay for their loved ones’ utility bills across borders. Saldo recently debuted a microinsurance service, Consuelo, to allow users to easily use a fixed health and life insurancepolicy.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech
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Kenya’s New Favorite Customer: Iran
On his first trip to Iran last June, Joseph Kamau Kiminda quickly learned that Iranians care about a few things more than tea. The CEO of Kenyan tea company, Cup of Joe, spent time with everyday Iranians who, immediately after rolling out of bed, put tea to boil, leaving it on all day. His Iranian business counterparts called him most days, including Saturdays, at six in the morning to discuss tea for three to four hours. He even received a lecture on tea quality from the secretary of an Iranian tea distributor. “They know tea,” Kiminda concluded.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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MetLife Foundation Makes Significant Progress Towards $200 Million, Five Year Commitment to Financial Inclusion
Today, MetLife Foundation released its 2015 Annual Report, highlighting its activities and showcasing a broad array of partners, grantees and activities.
- Categories
- Investing
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Inside the High-Stakes World of Vaccine Development
Vaccines are widely recognized as the most effective way we’ve got to fight infectious disease, a bulwark against a staggeringly diverse array of potentially pathogenic organisms looking to circumvent our defenses. Pervasive vaccines like those for influenza, measles, or polio offer a sense of security, but it wasn’t always so, and a range of established and emerging threats continue to present real problems. Given the physical interconnectedness of even the most remote locations with the rest of the world, esoteric pathogens have a fast track to global transmission like never before.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Tags
- vaccines
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Grameen Foundation and ideas42 Launch Partnership to Expand Financial Inclusion in the Philippines
Grameen Foundation and ideas42 yesterday launched a new partnership to support financial inclusion in the Philippines using principles from behavioral science and innovations in digital financial services using mobile phones. The initiative, funded by JPMorgan Chase Foundation, aims to reach thousands of people identified in the low-income bracket throughout the country.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Sun Pharma Joins Hands With ICMR for Malaria Eradication Prog
In a first of its kind of public private partnership (PPP), pharmaceutical giant Sun Pharma has collaborated with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to eradicate malaria by 2030.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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