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How an Anti-Tech Teacher Ended Up Creating A Mobile App to Improve Education in Africa
In 2011 I returned to Kenya for a vacation. I wanted to see the community where I had lived just two years earlier, bring gifts to the families I had bonded with, and sing songs with the kids of the rural village that I had called home. I had lived in Muhuru Bay without water and electricity while working with teachers in this community to help students prepare for high school. It was meant to be a break before heading off to the West Coast for business school. I hadn't expected to start a company, especially one in technology.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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World Trade Organization Least-Developed Countries Request Waiver of Intellectual Property Rights on Pharma Products
This week at the World Trade Organization intellectual property committee meeting, least-developed countries submitted a request to extend a waiver allowing them not to enforce intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products. The countries have extended the waiver before, but this time they are seeking to make it indefinite, until they are no longer considered LDCs.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Big Pharma, NGO Square the Circle on Access to Vaccines
One would expect a multinational pharmaceutical group and a leading humanitarian NGO to hold radically opposed views on access to vaccines.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Merck Places Children’s HIV Drug in Shared Non-Profit Patent Pool
U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co has contributed an HIV medicine for children to an international shared patent pool in a move that should speed the development of cheap paediatric formulations for use in poor countries.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Treating India’s Ailing Rural Healthcare
Treating diarrhea and pneumonia among children often requires a fairly simple intervention, such as administering life-saving oral rehydration salts. But instead, Indian doctors are often prescribing unnecessary antibiotics or other drugs that may actually worsen illness - according to a recent study coming out of Duke University in the United States.
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- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Yunus Sees Room for Microcredit in China
Microcredit has been met with immense enthusiasm in China in recent years, with both banks and business moguls pushing into the sector. Global Times (GT) reporters Gu Di and Liu Zhun talked to Muhammad Yunus (Yunus), a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, economist, and microcredit icon. For founding Grameen Bank, a bank that makes small loans to the impoverished, he was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus shared his understanding with GT of why microcredit is flourishing in China and how China's "One Belt and One Road" project could influence the field.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Citi and IBM Align to Accelerate Digital Banking Innovation Through Citi Mobile Challenge
Citi® and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a collaboration to work with developers and build the next generation of financial technology (FinTech) through the Citi Mobile Challenge. IBM will offer mentorship tutorials, and access to Bluemix, IBM's digital innovation platform, to help developers participating in the Citi Mobile Challenge build, test and deploy their FinTech solutions. Citi Chief Client Experience, Digital and Marketing Officer for Global Consumer Banking Heather Cox and IBM Fellow and CTO Jerry Cuomo made the announcement at IBM InterConnect 2015, IBM's major cloud and mobile conference.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- digital payments
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MasterCard, Grooming Centre Boost Financial Inclusion for MSMEs in Nigeria
Over 500,000 female entrepreneurs in Nigeria are to be introduced to electronic payments under a new partnership agreed between MasterCard and local microfinance institution Grooming Centre.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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