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Missed Calls = Missed Opportunities: How Starlogik is Converting a Mobile Billing Loophole into an Inclusive Innovation
The mobile telephony industry has done a remarkable job reaching poorer people in developing countries. But as Ignacio Mas at the Digital Frontiers Institute points out, this success has been shaped by customer ingenuity too – for instance, through the common practice of reallocating call charges by requesting call-backs via missed calls. He explores how Starlogik has formalized this billing loophole to create a mutually beneficial new feature.
- Categories
- Technology
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How Mastercard’s CEO is Working Toward Financial Inclusion During the Pandemic
“I believe that digitization is a mechanism to deliver inclusive growth,” he said, “but digitization is also the vehicle for those who are left out to feel even further left out.”
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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Mastercard Expands Global Commitment To Connect 1B People
Mastercard’s latest pledge builds on its 2015 financial inclusion effort to bring financial services to 500 million people. It also builds on the firm’s goals of reaching out to people all over the world who are facing physical and financial health issues due to COVID-19.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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The Informal Economy is Complicating Government Responses to COVID-19: Will the Crisis Push Millions Toward Formality?
As COVID-19 devastates the global economy, many governments have designed support measures to help businesses and workers survive. But as Jill Lagos Shemin and James Dailey point out, this support may be ineffective in lower-income countries, where most small businesses and their employees work in the informal economy, lacking bank accounts and even valid ID. They explore some solutions governments can pursue – and trade-offs they will have to accept.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Finance
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What Happens When a Billion Identities Are Digitized?
Over the last decade, India’s Aadhaar, a biometrically secured national identification system, has allowed millions to participate in the country’s economic life. But the system’s success has ignited a debate over whether any entity, public or private, should have the ability to pool our full digital profiles.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Brazil Sees Surge in Uptake of Government Services Online
Covid-19 outbreak prompts citizens to rush to the platform, which has been expanded to support service provision during the crisis.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Viewpoint: Can Big Data Fight a Pandemic?
The COVID-19 crisis has intensified the debate over big data and privacy. Governments are pulling together data from public and private systems in order to predict and counter the spread of COVID-19. But setting aside privacy protections in a time of crisis could lead to new, permanent norms. We asked Yale SOM’s K. Sudhir about the role of India’s nationwide identity system, Aadhaar, and the use of big data around the world.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Can COVID-19 Catalyze Vietnam’s Digital Transformation?
Many of Vietnam’s swift and effective public health responses have been enabled by information technology.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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