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Leveraging Big Data to Improve Mental Health After COVID-19: An Innovative Research Method Reveals Unmet Needs and Untapped Opportunities in Nigeria
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a marked impact on the state of global mental health, particularly in emerging regions like Africa. According to Ravi Sreenath and Amy Nguyen at Ripple Research, this has generated a significant need – and a market opportunity – for digital health tools, as well as a need for better data. They assess the state of mental health in Nigeria, analyzing data from millions of conversations across news sites, blogs and social media platforms – and explore how this data reveals new opportunities for social enterprises and investors.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Revenue-Based Financing Platform a55 Receives USD$16.3 Million Series B Investment Led by Movile to Accelerate Growth
a55, a leading revenue-based financing platform in Latin America, has received USD$16.3 million Series B investment led by Movile, a long-term investor and accelerator for LatAm tech companies.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- blockchain, data, financial inclusion, fintech
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Savings-Led Digital Finance: The Dawn of a New Era?
The digital lending market surpassed $300 billion in 2020, with significant growth among emerging markets customers who access “instant loans” from their mobile phones. But according to Philip Acton and Finn Tiedemann at DreamStart Labs Inc., there are growing concerns about the risky practices used by some of these digital lenders. They argue that one solution may come from a new generation of “savings-led” digital finance apps that use clients' savings capacity as a proxy for their ability to repay loans – a development they describe as an important milestone in digital finance.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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AI Startup Fractal Becomes Unicorn With $360 Million Investment From TPG
Fractal has raised $360 million from TPG in a new financing round and entered the unicorn club as the Mumbai and New York-based AI startup,
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Ghanaian Healthtech mPharma Raises USD $35 Million Funding Round
Ghanaian health tech startup mPharma has raised a USD 35 Mn Series D round to help build the startup’s data infrastructure, triple its talent pool over the next three years.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2021
At the end of each year, NextBillion selects our 12 most-read articles from the previous 12 months, and invites readers to vote for the pieces that impacted them the most. We've counted the votes, and we’re happy to announce our three most influential articles of 2021. We’d like to congratulate the winners and all the contestants in this contest – along with everyone who read and wrote for NextBillion last year. We wish you a healthy, happy and prosperous 2022.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Impact Assessment, Investing
- Tags
- data, energy access, ESG, impact measurement
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Press Release: Datavault® Contracts With Agri-fintech Company Tingo To Deliver Data Revenue to Its 10 Million International Members
Partnership will focus on the continent of Africa and data monetization strategies within the farming, agriculture, and finance sectors.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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The Digital Revolution in Healthcare: How COVID-19 Has Accelerated Efforts to Close the Health Data Gap in Emerging Markets
In many emerging markets, there is a lack of accountable, accurate, real-time health information. With most medical information stored either on paper or on unconnected, often incompatible digital platforms, health statistics are largely disjointed, incomplete and inaccurate – a data gap that impacts every stakeholder in the healthcare ecosystem. However, according to Mark Wien at PocketPatientMD, this situation is changing. He explores how COVID-19 has accelerated the transition to digital data solutions, and highlights some key challenges to these efforts.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care