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Up to 2.5 Billion People Need Glasses: Can This Hardware Innovation Deliver?
Roughly 25 percent of the global population needs glasses, but lacks access. The problem isn't cost: Affordable glasses are readily available in emerging markets. What's lacking are trained eye care specialists. The social startup PlenOptika is tackling that issue with a device called the QuickSee: a binocular-sized autorefractor that non-specialists can use to scan a patient’s eyes and produce an eyeglass prescription within seconds. Paul Scott, director of engineering for ASME, discusses the innovation, and the challenges and rewards of running a social hardware startup.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship, Health Care, Technology
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Through Social Investing, Asia’s ‘On a Journey to Help it Help Itself’
AVPN's recent annual conference, known as “Asia’s top social investment event,” attracted representatives from 32 countries, including 18 Asian ones, reflecting the reality that activity is taking off across the region, says John-Paul Hamilton of Dasra. And it seemed fitting that the conference centered on collaboration, which is more essential than ever to ensure a progressive and suitable continuum of funding.
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- Investing
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Building Tools to Measure How, and How Much, Consumers Benefit from Financial Inclusion
It's easy to affirm that financial inclusion is increasing. It's more difficult – because of a lack of reliable and actionable tools – to determine how adults derive value from financial inclusion. To address that need, insight2impact recently developed and tested a needs measurement framework concept that takes users’ actual usage patterns into consideration.
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- Uncategorized
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How ‘Designing Under the Mango Tree’ Can Prevent Digital Solution Hiccups
Like an off-road vehicle, when you build a digital solution, you want to build with the most challenging environments in mind. Why? So the digital solution can scale with fewer hiccups, as it grows outward. Mobile services company Dimagi calls it “designing under the mango tree,” and it requires working in partnership with a variety of end users. It's hard work, Kathryn M. Clifton writes, but worth it.
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- Technology
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Hooked on Sustainable Fish? Great – Now Let’s Help Fishers Who Net Them
Small-scale fishing operations play a critical role in food security and alleviating poverty, but face many challenges in developing countries. The Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, which has helped build social businesses that train fishers and fish farmers to adopt sustainable practices, is among a growing group of stakeholders working toward a common goal of preserving our oceans and fisheries.
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- Entrepreneurship, Environment
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Tackling Tuberculosis in Southern Africa’s Mineworkers with an Innovative Approach
As many recognize World TB Day, March 24, an initiative in South Africa shows how an innovative and a more harmonized regional approach can result in more effective TB management in the mining sector.
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- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Finding New Pathways to a More Inclusive and Humane Economy
Social entrepreneurs, in their pursuit of the common good, have taught us that solutions won't come from a single sector or organization. And that's been reinforced by recent collaborations that reflect a complete new way of envisioning social change and clear the path for a more inclusive and humane economy, where social innovation is also a source of economic performance and gradually infiltrates the DNA of every company.
- Categories
- Entrepreneurship
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Most Influential Post Winner: Finding the Right Last-Mile Distribution Model
This post, which addresses a recent effort to share what works and doesn't work in bringing market-driven solutions to base-of-the-pyramid customers, was the most popular NextBillion article in September. That earned it a place in our annual Most Influential Post contest. You can vote for it, or any of the other 11 contenders, through Jan. 2. The winner will be announced on Jan. 4.
- Categories
- Education, Entrepreneurship
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