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  • M-Pesa: Kenya's mobile money success story turns 10

    Ten years ago, Vodafone's Safaricom launched "M-Pesa" a mobile-phone based payment system designed to ease transfer of money in Kenya among individuals and small businesses. With a maximum transaction of 70,000 Kenyan shillings ($675 USD), M-Pesa markets "to the base of the pyramid:" not only has M-Pesa taken root in more than ten other countries, but it counts 18 million active users in Kenya and, through access to a mobile monetary payment system, has lifted 2% of Kenyan households out of extreme poverty.

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  • USPS Could Tackle Food Insecurity

    While the USPS has seen a drastic decline in revenues and capacity in recent years due to growing competition from the private sector and social changes, First Class Meal is reimagining the role that this institution has to play: improving national access to healthy food. Using the existing USPS app to connect organizations and food banks that struggle to distribute donations, postal drivers out on their normal routes would pick up donations, deliver to food banks or pantries, and store food in post offices with excess capacity.

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  • Kenya's booming digital sharing economy?

    Though the big players in the sharing economy like Uber and Airbnb are eyeing growing middle class markets like that of Kenya, the concept of shared access to goods and services is nothing new for Kenyan communities. Whereas in the West, the shared economy structure arose largely from a desire for flexibility, in Kenya, much of it arose from need. Now platforms like Lynk and Little Cabs are helping connect Kenyan customers to a broad range of service providers.

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  • Panic button: how can safety apps for women curb sexual assaults in India?

    Sexual violence is a huge problem in India. The mobile apps and online maps created in response aren’t helping. Why? The tools are unreliable, not integrated with government services, and don’t address the cultural dynamics surrounding sexual harassment and assault.

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  • Malawi: Combating maternal deaths with innovations

    Women in Malawi face numerous challenges in reproductive health, especially HIV-positive mothers, and maternal deaths are still rampant in rural areas of the country. Technology is helping change the landscape of maternal health, with devices such as cell phones being used to provide women in rural villages with vital health information, and drones delivering medications where the roads are too rough for emergency services to access quickly.

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  • As Columbia meal-sharing app stalled, NYU counterpart soared

    To address the food insecurity problem among its low-income students, Columbia University launched Swipes, a meal sharing app in which students with a surplus of “meal swipes” could donate them to students in need. But when that app struggled to function and roll out properly, Columbia looked downtown to New York University, where student Jon Chin launched a similarly purposed but more effectively designed app, Share Meals. So far, the app has enabled over a thousand meal donations, and is hoping to work with Columbia to share its code and expand its donor services.

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  • India's Life Savers

    Cyclones or floods could not close Sneha Center for Suicide Prevention in South India. This volunteer-run clinic is in the country with the highest number of suicides in the world. It is open 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, offering confidential support to people in distress. Since its founding in 1986, Sneha has received more than 350,000 calls, as well as in-person visits, emails, and postcards.

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  • Failure: the surprising fuel in Israel's startup engine

    Business people are beginning to see failure as a necessary way to learn. Entrepreneurs in Israel use their mistakes to learn from them and help guide them in the future.

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  • Estonia ditches paper with model e-governance services

    Through the Estonian government's e-services, which include digital options for voting, paying taxes, storing identification, and more, the country saved roughly €280 million over the span of a decade thanks to the lower cost of collecting digital signatures.

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  • The doctor will see you now… on your smartphone

    Healthcare in the United Kingdom faces a major shortage of doctors, but innovative mobile applications are addressing this need through offering online video doctor consultations and AI-empowered diagnoses. Comparing the service to other mobile platforms used for taxis and dry cleaning, these medical app designers aim to both cater to modern demands for streamlined delivery services across all sectors, as well as democratize health care for those who lack traditional access.

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