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Why More Smartphones and Bank Accounts Haven’t Brought Financial Digital Inclusion in India
India's financial sector has been a gung-ho adopter of technology. But design of technology and finance have hardly reflected users’ lived realities.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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A Look Into India’s First Digital Village
“We saw the situation in the rest of India, long lines, fights—everyone’s life had come to a stand still. We were amazed,” says Urmila Ben, a resident of Akodara. “People had made such a big deal out of this whole demonetization, but we could not be bothered any less,” says Chintan Patel, the sarpanch, or head of the village. “For us, life went on as usual.”
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- South Asia
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Vodacom Drives Financial Inclusion with Affordable Smartphone Offers
“Many people in the country cannot afford high-tech smartphones or don’t want to commit to a contract,” says Vodacom Financial Services Chief Officer, Mariam Cassim.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Delivering Online Skills Training in Africa: Three Keys to a Successful Program
The shortage of data science skills is a major challenge for Africa. With relatively few local institutions offering degrees in the subject, African data scientists must often acquire their skills via online courses, leaving some unable to fully participate in the continent's emerging digital future. Dumisani Dube at Insight2Impact shares insights from a successful online course offered to its DataHack4FI participants, which could help other organizations better leverage digital learning in Africa.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Inside-Out: The Good and the Bad of insight2impact
Does this situation sound familiar? A development program generates lots of intriguing insights – but once it's over, these learnings end up languishing in a sparsely read report in the back pages of a website. That’s the scenario insight2impact (i2i) aims to avoid. As the program wraps up, i2i lead Hennie Bester describes how it's bringing the insights it has generated, from both successes and failures, to the organizations that can use them – including through a new partnership with NextBillion.
- Categories
- Finance
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Grab Launches Social Impact Program to Upskill Southeast Asians
With the Grab for Good program, the company looks to help around 5 million micro entrepreneurs and small businesses digitize their workflows and processes.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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An African Solution to the Digital Skills Gap: Preparing for the Future of Work in Emerging Markets
With the rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud computing, the nature of work is transforming. But while many focus on the possible downsides of these changes, like AI-fueled job loss, Becky Santora at Digital Divide Data points out some upsides as well. She explores the new technical and analytical skills necessary in the work of the future – and how emerging markets workers can prepare themselves.
- Categories
- Technology
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Revisiting our Assumptions About Digital Financial Inclusion: Three Unexpected Findings from BFA’s FIBR Project
When BFA launched its FIBR (Financial Inclusion on Business Runways) R&D project four years ago, it outlined a set of assumptions about how smartphones, increased connectivity and digitization would help to accelerate financial inclusion for small businesses in Africa. As the project wraps up, BFA Founder and Chair David Porteous explores which of those assumptions still hold – and which need to be reassessed as unanticipated developments have reshaped the market.
- Categories
- Finance
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