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The Blockchain Experiments Have Begun: Here’s What They Could Yield for Business and Development
The buzz around blockchain is loud. But despite the widespread attention the tech has generated, it has yet to live up to its potential to make a major impact in low- and middle-income countries, according to Akhtar Badshah of Catalytic Innovators Group. Badshah profiles blockchain success stories from the for-profit, social enterprise and development sectors alike, arguing that if more organizations would give the tech a chance, they (and their beneficiaries) could tap into its great potential.
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- Technology
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Report: Innovating our way to a better life
A look at the leaders in global innovation and how gaps in economic and technological capacity is creating inequality.
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- Technology
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Press release: The African Tech Hubs pioneering innovation: How digital transformation can drive growth and job creation across emerging economies
Innovation and entrepreneurship play an ever-increasing role in growing Africa’s emerging technology ecosystem.
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- Press release
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- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation: How Design Thinking Can Build Robust and Sustainable mHealth Ventures
Design thinking can help mHealth ventures develop their value propositions and potential impacts, meet customer needs, and shape business models that stand the test of time. In the final post in his series on making mHealth businesses sustainable, Khanjan Mehta provides a structured framework that helps these enterprises determine their viability, particularly in the early conceptualization phase.
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- Entrepreneurship, Health Care, Technology
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Internalizing Innovation: It’s About Creating a Culture, Not a Product
Innovation holds the key to expanding financial health for low- and moderate-income households—but how can organizations foster a culture of innovation, rather than treating it as a one-off event or a process fix? MetLife Foundation and UNCDF are launching two new innovation hubs in China and Malaysia that aim to promote this cultural shift. Krishna Thacker and Jaspreet Singh discuss the program's unique approach.
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- Education, Entrepreneurship, Finance
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Hardware Innovation is … Hard: How These Entrepreneurs Overcame the Challenges
Compared with the creators of app-based products, hardware-focused innovators face a much more difficult and expensive journey, says Villgro CTO Arun Venkatesan. The resources and time required to perfect hardware iterations are larger, the lack of a mature ecosystem is a problem, and the buyer is often distinctly different from the user or beneficiary. Venkatesan profiles four hardware innovators in agriculture and health care, discussing how they worked through these obstacles.
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- Agriculture, Health Care, Investing, Technology
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For Solar Irrigation to Grow, the Pump Needs to be Innovative – So Does the Warranty
Helen Davies at Futurepump writes that the startup has developed a cost-effective, solar-based pump to irrigate crops that is simple to use and maintain, and designed specifically with small rural farms in mind. The firm has already sold 4,000 units and is distributing in 11 African and Asian countries. But beyond the technology, an equally important innovation is the company's five-year warranty on the product, which Davies says is an industry first. She makes the case that solar device makers operating in low-income markets need to stand behind their products with warrantees and service, if customers are going to trust the technology and the manufacturers.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Technology
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Press release: MIT’s Inclusive Innovation Challenge awards over $1 million to organizations harnessing technology to create greater economic opportunity for workers
The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy has awarded over $1 million in prize money in its second annual MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC) in recognition and celebration of for-profit and non-profit organizations using technology to improve economic opportunity for base- and middle-level income earners.
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- Technology
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