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Entrepreneurship is a Skill, Not a Talent: The Power of the Group-Based Graduation Model
Village Enterprise implements a cost-effective, group-based, one-year graduation program for rural Africans who live on less than $1.90 per day. The organization believes that entrepreneurship is not just for the naturally business-minded, it's a skill like leadership or teamwork that can be fostered and learned. Its aim, therefore, is to unlock the potential of those who are entrepreneurs by nature and instill the skills of entrepreneurship in those who are not.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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What’s So Special About a Golden Banana?
Scientists at Queensland University (QUT) of Technology in Australia have announced a way to use fruit as a vehicle for solving the world's Vitamin A deficiency problem: They’ve developed the genes required to produce what they call “golden bananas.”
- Categories
- Health Care
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Alibaba executive chairman creates $10M African youth entrepreneur fund
Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma launched a $10 million African Young Entrepreneurs Fund at the YouthConnekt Africa Summit. The fund is expected to be operational this year.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Want to Know How to Properly Measure Financial Inclusion? Copy the Retailers.
To better understand and measure how people use financial services, i2i looked outside the industry to the retail sector, which is at the forefront of how to collect and analyze data on how consumers engage with their services. In particular, retailers understand key usage indicators fundamental to their business; namely recency, frequency, monetary value and duration. That led i2i to apply these indicators while studying how to improve financial services.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Field of View: How a Chilli Cash Crop Helps Subsistence Farmers Shape Their Future
During a three-year process designed to assess the impact of growing a chilli cash crop on small farmers living in southern Africa, it was discovered that when a family earned just $500 more of net income per year, the money materially impacted at least two categories of their basic human needs. But the most profound impact, writes Tanner Methvin, was that of self-determination.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Development Engineering: Scaling Tech Solutions from Ideation, to Pilot … to the World?
Scaling technologies that promote economic development is challenging. That's why UC Berkeley established the Development Impact Lab. Natasha Beale, the lab's manager, discusses the concept of "development engineering" and gives examples to illustrate that large-scale impact is indeed possible with the right mix of targeted funding, technological innovation and rigorous field work.
- Categories
- Education, Technology, Telecommunications
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Social Enterprise’s Achilles Heel: How the Information Deficit Limits Scale and Impact in India
While academic writing around social entrepreneurship has risen exponentially in the West, the same has not been true for Africa, Latin America and India – where there's also a general lack of information concerning diverse business models, innovative approaches and lessons learned, according to Devanshi Vaid. That's why India Development Review was created.
- Categories
- Education
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Machine Learning Meets Credit Scoring: How it Can Help Reduce Loan Delinquency Costs
Investment in predictive algorithms for credit scoring is a no-brainer for sophisticated digital financial service providers. Brick-and-mortar financial institutions that are just beginning to explore technology applications should follow suit, according to BFA, because credit scoring optimizes three business layers that improve the overall bottom line.
- Categories
- Finance
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