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Finding Partners in Uncharted Territory: How to Harness Network Effects to Build Relationships When You’re Starting from Scratch
Learning how to navigate a complex and changing stakeholder landscape is an essential skill for anyone in the social impact space. But how do you go about identifying and building relationships with new partners when you’re charting new geographic or thematic territory? Mari-Lise du Preez at insight2impact discusses network science-based tactics to identify key actors and cultivate strong relationships among them.
- Categories
- Finance
- Tags
- data, financial inclusion, fintech
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New Solutions to an Old Problem: How the Internet of Things, Water Kiosks and Sensor Data are Improving Access to WASH in Kenya
When well water systems break down due to a lack of monitoring or maintenance, people can go days or even weeks without access to water for themselves and their livestock. The Kenya RAPID program seeks to solve this problem by applying innovative technology and data to improve water management and distribution. Paul Wiedmaier at Catholic Relief Services explores how the program is already making a significant impact on water access in Kenya.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications, WASH
- Tags
- data, innovation, Internet of Things, water
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Delivering Online Skills Training in Africa: Three Keys to a Successful Program
The shortage of data science skills is a major challenge for Africa. With relatively few local institutions offering degrees in the subject, African data scientists must often acquire their skills via online courses, leaving some unable to fully participate in the continent's emerging digital future. Dumisani Dube at Insight2Impact shares insights from a successful online course offered to its DataHack4FI participants, which could help other organizations better leverage digital learning in Africa.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Making Technical Assistance Work in Africa: Three Keys to Success for Financial Services Providers
It’s not easy delivering data-driven financial services to financially excluded customers in Africa. That’s why technical assistance can be essential to these financial service providers' success. Dumisani Dube at Insight2Impact (i2i) explores the technical assistance programs that i2i provided to seven financial service providers across the continent, and shares what worked – and what didn't.
- Categories
- Finance
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Inside-Out: The Good and the Bad of insight2impact
Does this situation sound familiar? A development program generates lots of intriguing insights – but once it's over, these learnings end up languishing in a sparsely read report in the back pages of a website. That’s the scenario insight2impact (i2i) aims to avoid. As the program wraps up, i2i lead Hennie Bester describes how it's bringing the insights it has generated, from both successes and failures, to the organizations that can use them – including through a new partnership with NextBillion.
- Categories
- Finance
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Splunk Ventures Launches With $150 Million to Fuel the Next Generation of Data Analytics
“Organizations around the world are not only racing to make faster, better decisions, they’re also hoping to turn data into business outcomes that are both cost and time effective,” Doug Merritt, Splunk president and CEO, said in a statement.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- data, startups, venture capital
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Working With Data In Latin America: Challenges And Strategies
It’s important to analyze the obstacles associated with data collection in emerging economies, and what companies can do to overcome them.
- Region
- Latin America
- Tags
- data, venture capital
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Revisiting our Assumptions About Digital Financial Inclusion: Three Unexpected Findings from BFA’s FIBR Project
When BFA launched its FIBR (Financial Inclusion on Business Runways) R&D project four years ago, it outlined a set of assumptions about how smartphones, increased connectivity and digitization would help to accelerate financial inclusion for small businesses in Africa. As the project wraps up, BFA Founder and Chair David Porteous explores which of those assumptions still hold – and which need to be reassessed as unanticipated developments have reshaped the market.
- Categories
- Finance