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How Blockchain Can Support Social Impact: Three Innovative Use Cases that Highlight its Potential
When it comes to blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin seem to dominate the headlines, whereas blockchain itself – cryptocurrencies’ underlying technology – often gets overlooked. But according to Raj Jain at the Social Finance Fund, blockchain may actually have a more compelling future than cryptocurrency – and the technology is flourishing in a variety of different spaces, including the social impact sector. He highlights three organizations that are putting blockchain to innovative use in social impact.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Technology
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Analysis: The Case of the Underperforming Circular Economy
Progress resides through the decidedly less-glamorous earthbound work of business process improvements, negotiations among buyers and sellers, and internal business teams needing to resolve highly complex technical issues. These efforts are essential to building more empowering business cultures through intra-organizational and cross-value-chain networks.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Global
- Tags
- circular economy, scale
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Charting a Pathway to Scale Through Government: Adapting a Girls’ Empowerment Program to a Public School Setting
BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) program supports vulnerable young women through group training focused on education and social/economic empowerment. But despite its longevity and impact, the program has lacked a path to self-sufficiency and scale. Esau Tugume and Jenna Grzeslo at BRAC discuss a solution to this challenge: adapting ELA to an after-school setting in Uganda, allowing it to be scaled through public schools. They explore this model, and share how they've navigated the issues that can arise when leveraging government involvement in pursuit of scale.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
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Asian Development Bank Approves $100 Million Loan for Agribusiness Development in India
Despite ample opportunities for the growth of horticulture, most smallholder farmers still practice subsistence farming because of fragmented land ownership, insufficient capital to scale up, and lack of direct access to emerging high-value markets.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- scale, smallholder farmers
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Press Release: 54gene Closes $25 Million Series B to Advance Global Drug Discovery Capabilities
Cathay Africinvest Innovation leads round as company expands precision medicine capabilities across the African continent.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Global
- Tags
- scale
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Press Release: New Report Urges International Investment in African Philanthropy for Sustainable Social Impact
Hard hitting new research co-commissioned by Vodacom, Safaricom and Vodafone Foundation suggests that the sustainable development of the not-for-profit sector in Africa is being challenged by an imbalance in international investment.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Viewpoint: Rise of the ‘Carbon Capitalist’
According to Matthew Roling, Aside from wealth creation, there will be at least two other benefits to scaling the carbon market.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Global
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Three Common Mistakes Startups Make When Running Lean Experiments – And How To Avoid Them
Reaching product-market fit is critical to growing a startup, but the process can be chaotic, as founders must solve multiple problems at once. But while planning and strategizing can address some of these issues, Akansha Kasera and Malika Anand at Catalyst Fund argue that the most robust solutions come from experiments and iterations. They explore the lean experimentation approach used by Catalyst Fund's portfolio companies, share a free product-market fit toolkit that can guide experiment design — and highlight three mistakes to avoid during this crucial process.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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