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Downforce Technologies Secures $4.2 Million to Scale Revolutionary Soil Organic Carbon Measurement Tech
Downforce’s groundbreaking natural capital analytics technology leverages cutting-edge science, modelling and remote sensing.
- Categories
- Environment, Technology
- Region
- Global
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Wasoko-MaxAB E-Commerce Merger Faces Delays Amid Headwinds in Africa
The delay is important in part because of how high-profile this deal has been so far. It’s been described as “the largest merger in African e-commerce” by both companies.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- e-commerce, scale, startups
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Solving the Educational Disparity in India: A Scalable Solution Leverages AI and Behavior Change to Reach Underserved Communities
Around 37 million Indian children lack access to any form of early education service. Vishal Sunil and Sushmita Roy at Rocket Learning discuss how their organization is addressing this issue through its learning platform, which leverages AI technology and WhatsApp to provide free educational tools to children and parents, while offering training and other resources to the daycare workers who play a key role in the country’s early childhood development landscape.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
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Under-Leveraged Best Practices for Scaling Productive Use of Energy Appliances: Part 2 — Financing Options
Productive Use of Energy (PUE) appliances are the subject of growing attention in the development sector, but manufacturers and distributors are facing a number of challenges and misconceptions that are limiting uptake of these devices. In the second article of a two-part series exploring best practices for selling PUE appliances, Thomas Charoy and Lucie Klarsfeld McGrath at Hystra discuss the affordability challenge, sharing solutions for handling the high level of working capital and financial skills required to offer financing options to end-users.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Finance, Technology
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Scaling Impact in the Last Mile Distribution Sector: The Pros and Cons of Different Pathways to Scale
The last mile distribution sector has gained significant momentum. But as Russell Lyseight at the Global Distributors Collective and Emma Colenbrander at Spring Impact point out, there is still a huge discrepancy between the size of the problem (i.e., last mile consumers’ lack of access to beneficial products and services) and the distribution solutions that currently exist. They explore several approaches last mile distributors can use to close this gap.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy
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Comparing Business Models for Scaling Access to Productive Use of Energy Appliances in Agriculture: The Advantages of Pay-Per-Use
Productive Use of Energy (PUE) appliances — including solar refrigerators, water pumps and more — can boost productivity, income and quality of life in vulnerable communities. But as Ankur Singh, Argha Ghose and Clementine Chambon at Oorja explain, challenges like high upfront costs, lack of financing and poor after-sales service hinder their adoption among these consumers. They explore several business and end-user financing models that can support PUE uptake in agriculture, and explain why the pay-per-use model is uniquely suitable for low-income consumers.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Finance, Technology
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Analysis: Tackling Africa’s Most Neglected Infrastructure Problem
Scaling-up irrigation is vital to enable farmers to increase output and improve resilience.
- Categories
- Agriculture, WASH
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- infrastructure, MSMEs, scale, smallholder farmers, water
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Under-Leveraged Best Practices for Scaling Productive Use of Energy Appliances: Part 1 — Sales Support and Market Access
Productive Use of Energy (PUE) appliances can increase revenue for low-income populations, mitigate climate change and improve global energy access. But according to Thomas Charoy and Lucie Klarsfeld McGrath at Hystra, uptake of PUE appliances remains slow, due in part to the training, market linkages and after-sales support needed for customers to get the full benefit from these complex products. They explore some common challenges and best practices in selling PUE solutions, focusing on the appliances with the most mature and promising markets: solar water pumps and solar refrigerators.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Technology
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