design

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Value Chains

Solving the world’s water issues: How focusing on profit can help the poor

When leading water technology company Xylem started manufacturing simple pumps for smallholder farmers, it wasn't for charity, the company expected to profit.

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Social Enterprise

Doing development better by thinking like a designer

If development professionals thought like designers, they would be much more successful in helping communities lift themselves out of poverty. That’s the argument of Heather Fleming, a PopTech Social Innovation fellow, who recently gave a talk at the Mercy Corps Action Center.

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Social Enterprise

One woman’s quest to solve poverty through better design

Motivated by social inequality, Heather Fleming is bringing human-centered design to the developing world.

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Value Chains

Water partners: Teaming up to solve shortages

Mercy Corps works with a private company, Xylem, to address urgent water needs in some of the toughest places on Earth. Why work with a partner?

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Value Chains

Profiting from poop: How selling human waste could revolutionize sanitation

Dealing with human waste has become a health crisis in many poor communities, but residents of a Kenyan slum have found a solution that turns poop into profit.

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Social Enterprise

Krochet Kids International reimagines empowerment with hook and stitch

A team of friends from Spokane is turning a love of crocheting into real jobs for women in Uganda and Peru.

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Social Enterprise

How three common pitfalls of social enterprises can be avoided

Many businesses face challenges trying to balance for-profit endeavors with social objectives, and end up trapped by three familiar pitfalls.

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Social Enterprise

Five tips from Nike on growing into a multinational corporation

Tips and tricks from Nike on becoming a global, multibillion dollar corporation.

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Social Enterprise

West meets East: Bridging local artisans with Western markets

Three businesses are finding success by blending fashion with social enterprise, providing artisans with the security of a safe job, dependable income, health care and education.

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Social Enterprise

Quotable: Designing low-cost products that save lives isn't easy

“We thought if you design a good product, it will scale on its own,” Ms. Donaldson said. “That works in efficient markets, but most developing communities don’t have efficient markets.”

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Financial Inclusion

This is what financial inclusion looks like: CGAP announces photo contest winners

A man stacks bricks on his head to carry. Another sells newspapers. Three women carry fishing nets across golden sand dunes. These images, among the winners of CGAP’s annual photo contest, portray workers at the bottom of the economic pyramid around the world.

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Value Chains

5 ways to support farming irrigation in sub-saharan Africa: Beyond technology

Big government-funded irrigation projects in Sub-Saharan Africa are often expensive and inaccessible, so farmers are taking matters into their own hands.