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Social Innovation Needs Data, This Free Platform Provides It
New social innovations are exciting, but there’s also great value in scaling existing solutions that show promise. There’s just one problem with this approach, says Sweta Govani: The information about these innovations is incomplete, complicated and fragmented, making it hard to determine which ones deserve support. She discusses a new solution called Global Innovation Exchange, a free, data-driven technology platform that gives funders, social entrepreneurs and others easy access to high-quality, up-to-date information about existing global development innovations.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Investing
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Inexpensive Impact: The Case for Frugal Innovations
Over 4 billion people around the world lack necessities like food, water, energy, health care and housing. This represents not only a major social challenge but a major market, as low-income consumers have an annual purchasing capacity of US $5 trillion. Rajat Chabba and Sheena Raikundalia at Intellecap explore how entrepreneurs are developing innovative, frugal products to meet these customers’ needs – and why an ecosystem approach is needed to help them scale their solutions.
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- Entrepreneurship, Technology
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Affordable, Scalable, Overlooked: Evaporative Cooling Can Fight Food Loss – Why isn’t the Development Sector Embracing It?
Food loss due to lack of effective storage is a global problem: In sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately 23 percent of available food is lost or wasted. There’s increasing interest in an innovative yet old-school solution to the problem: evaporative cooling. But though the technology can be adopted with minimal training, low up-front costs and no electricity, it is not widely used. MIT D-Lab research engineer Eric Verploegen explores five ways to increase the effective production, dissemination and usage of this technology.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Technology
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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
- Categories
- 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.
- Categories
- Education, Entrepreneurship, Finance
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