innovation

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Value Chains

Medicines hitchhike with Coca Cola to save lives

British nonprofit Colalife knows how to enjoy a Coke--its medicine gets to rural Zambians in Coke crates--but even medical supplies need local flavor to be successful.

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Social Enterprise

Move over, angel investors, crowdfunding is changing the rules of the game

As banks rein in lending options for entrepreneurs, crowdfunding’s popularity is off the charts and continuing to rise.

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Sustainable Energy

India's energy sector gets a $100 million boost and a nudge from U.S. Secretary of State

India, the fourth-largest consumer of energy worldwide, is showing the rest of the world how to eradicate energy poverty by looking skyward towards the sun.

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Sustainable Energy

Doing good with green: How d.light is making solar work

An American solar company is showing the world how to get electricity to poor families cleanly and efficiently, and how to make money at the same time.

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Financial Inclusion

Bank Andara: A bank for banks in Indonesia grows micro businesses and turns a profit

The first of its kind, a wholesale bank called Bank Andara has been making tech-savvy banking services available to the Indonesian microfinance sector for four years, now achieving a profit.

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Financial Inclusion

Teachers in Afghanistan to receive salaries to their mobile wallets

Afghani public school teachers--mostly women--will start receiving their salaries directly to their mobile wallets, bypassing the decades old problem of corruption and inefficiency.

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Social Enterprise

The SunWater project: advanced solar technology for poor farmers

Paul Polak, the author of Out of Poverty, is creating the world's most inexpensive solar water pump. Here's how.

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Social Enterprise

Tech startup finds the ticket to growth with old ideas

A brand-new Mexican tech startup is making its products affordable using a centuries-old financing trick that lets startups and their customers shift their risk toward third-party investors.

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Social Enterprise

Quotable: Ebay founder on impact investing

Global capitalism has left billions of people behind. But the founder of ebay says we need to apply the power of that same market to help solve stubborn economic and social challenges.

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Social Enterprise

As public and private firms blur, Seoul mayor calls it perfectly natural

Social innovation is slowly spreading to virtually every sector of the global economy, according to the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s summer issue.

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Social Enterprise

Transforming solar pumping to eliminate rural poverty

What if we could harness the limitless power of the sun to carry water to the crops of millions of small poor farmers around the world?

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Social Enterprise

Business schools drive a global boom in social entrepreneurship

An MBA in social enterprise isn’t just for a few elites anymore. Studies from Harvard Business School and Bridgespan Group show social enterprise exploding at business schools around the world.