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Vodacom Adds EMV Banking Card to Complement M-Pesa Mobile Money Service in South Africa
Leading digital security company, Gemalto has announced the deployment of prepaid EMV banking cards to complement Vodacom’s m-pesa mobile wallet service in South Africa.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Many Universities ‘Failing to Address Public Health Needs of World’s Poor’
Most of the top-funded universities for medical science are not doing enough to address the needs of the world’s poorest people in terms of public health research, according to a new ranking.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Coinbase’s $75M Raise Shows Investors Still See Gold in Bitcoin
Coinbase announced a raise today of $75 million, putting the company’s total fundraising just over $106 million. That’s the biggest raise that a Bitcoin company has ever seen, despite the fact that Bitcoin’s value continues to decline. Last week, the coin fell below $200. As of this writing, however, it’s worth roughly $210 per Bitcoin.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- venture capital
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The End of the Silo: What It Means for Today’s Global Health Worker
From large corporations and foundations to the newest of startups, global health players focused on development are finding that success lies with shared values, aligned purpose and mutually reinforcing efforts. Meanwhile, NGOs are seeking new skills in their global health workforce and field partners, which require workers to think beyond established relationships.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
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Reaching the Hardest-to-Reach: Financial Services for Overlooked Populations
The growth of microfinance solutions to address pressing development challenges has brought many of the world's formerly "unbanked" into formal financial systems. However, one group continually remains outside the system -- the poorest of the poor. Even some microfinance programs and deliberately inclusive financial policies remain unaffordable for segments of the population. Across the Global South, a number of initiatives have emerged with the notion that, although access to financial services has expanded in recent years, the remaining need demands innovative actions. We take a look at examples in Lagos, Bogotá, Cairo, and Bangalore.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Pooling Public-Private Partnership Best Practices
Government leaders today have recognized the need to engage the private sector in development. While in the past, federal agencies supplied the majority of funding going toward developing countries, that percentage has continued to decrease over time — it is now down to around 9 percent. With 91 percent of global development funding now provided by nongovernment sources, the private sector has become a major player in the global development effort, and it is becoming increasingly important to find common objectives that garner their investment.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Twitter Confirms Acquisition of India’s Missed Call Marketing Platform ZipDial
Last week TechCrunch reported Twitter was in final talks to acquire ZipDial for between $30 million and $40 million, and today the company announced the deal has closed. ZipDial allows people to call a special phone number for a business, hang up before they incur a charge, and then receive a phone call or SMS with information about the business. This “missed call” marketing platform allows people to access content for free, which is especially useful in the developing world where many can’t afford data plans.
- Categories
- Technology
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Schneider Electric Introduces Innovative Solar Street Lights
Schneider Electric has announced the introduction of a new range of innovative energy efficient maintenance-free Solar Streetlights popularly known as Villaya.
- Categories
- Energy
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