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Sowing the seeds of social investment in Vietnam
British council initiatives will support the British governments scheme to promote international social investment. Like early stage social enterprises around the world, most social enterprises in Vietnam depend on grants, personal loans and then income to get their businesses up and running. But as they mature and look to the future, they increasingly seek out investment capital.
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MPesa And GCash: Can ‘Lean Regulation’ Be A Gamechanger for Financial Innovation?
The Lean Startup Approach emphasizes scientific experimentation, validated learning, iterative product design, and frequent product releases to gain customer feedback so that entrepreneurs can innovate on observed – rather than on pre-supposed – customer needs. Chris Bishko and Pearl Chan term this trend “Lean Regulation” where regulation is iteratively layered in as the market develops.
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Mobile Payment Startups Face Reluctant Indian Consumers
India has 554 million active cellphone users, yet only four percent use mobile banking. Still, the number of people who are weaning themselves off cash payments is steadily rising.
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New blow for microlenders in South Africa
GRAMEEN bank founder Muhammad Yunus, widely considered the father of modern microcredit, issued a stern warning on Friday about how microlending could become “abusive” and be misused by lenders.
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Financial inclusion: India too may learn from US weather insurance firm ClimateCorp’s model
ClimateCorp is actually a very interesting company which straddles an intersection between technology and retail financial services in an innovative way. Moreover, its approach holds an important lesson for us in India. ClimateCorp is a provider of weather insurance. However, it does so in a retail, online, productised and data-driven way.
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- Agriculture
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The Next Grand Challenge in India: Reinvent the Toilet
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with India'sBiotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) launched a call for proposals as part of Grand Challenges India to reinvent the toilet. The Department of Biotechnology and the Gates Foundation will each invest US$1 million to support Indian investigators to drive research, development, and production of the "next generation toilet."
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- Health Care, Technology
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- South Asia
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- public health
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Sujay Santra’s mission to provide an innovative healthcare service system to rural areas
Would you have the courage to leave behind a comfortable life in big MNC to chase a dream full of uncertainties? That’s exactly what Sujay Santra, the founder of iKure, did. Unhappy with the way his life was going, he resigned from Oracle – one of the biggest software and hardware systems companies – and got into his own business. “Although I had a very decent and satisfying life, I had an identity crisis. I asked ‘Where do I see myself in five, ten years down the line?” and the vision forward was not very satisfying. Then I started to think about how could I change many people’s lives; it triggered something in me and I started to feel I needed to do something”.
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- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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- public health
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ADB clears $700 mn loan for Indian infrastructure development
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $700 million in loans to support the Indian government's efforts to accelerate investment in infrastructure which the country requires to ensure strong economic growth.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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- infrastructure, lending