The third annual survey from the GIIN and JP Morgan on impact investing, Perspectives on Progress, highlighted that, although still a nascent marketplace, impact investors plan to commit at least $9 billion in 2013. In addition to this mass of available capital, we are seeing a significant number of calls-for-applications, winner announcements, and advice on how to advance startup activity that can provide entrepreneurs with both inspiration and opportunities. Here’s this week’s round up … read more
Weekly Review January 5-11: Mobile Tech’s Cross-Sector Influence
From agriculture to broadband, payments to people, mobile technology continues to impact every facet of Africa’s burgeoning economic growth.
“Africa: Raising the Bar on Agricultural Innovation” by Wendy Atkins on All Africa
An increasingly interesting area for us is agriculture. Mobile technology innovation has lots of applications and benefits, and more frequently experts are looking to it to solve the world’s food production gaps, especially in Africa. From the GSMA, to governments across … read more
Weekly Review December 28 – January 4: Seed Stage Impact Investments and Acceleration
2013 is already shaping up to be a big year for seed stage impact investment. Read what industry leaders like Ross Baird of Village Capital and Kevin Jones of SOCAP are saying, and what opportunities social entrepreneurs can take advantage of this January.
“Investing Early to Impact World-Changing Solutions” by Ross Baird, Village Capital Executive Director, on The Huffington Post
Ross Baird, executive director at our partner organization, Village Capital, discusses the … read more
Weekly Review December 22-28: Technology Innovation and Advances for 2013
Here’s our final weekly round up for 2012. This week, we are covering the way technology innovation and advances are setting up the potential for significant social and economic gains in Africa in 2013.
“Charity:Water, Other Nonprofits Get Help from Tech Innovators to Inspire New Philanthropy” by Brett Zongker on The Huffington Post
Charity:Water, one of the most well-respected nonprofits out there, has funded 7,000 clean water projects to date. The organization … read more
Weekly Review December 15-21: The Business of Energy
As alternative energy investors, we’re monitoring trends, innovations, business models, and costs for 2013. Read on to learn what GigaOM, The Guardian, Next Billion, and CleanTechnica have to say.
“The 10 best and worst things to happen to clean in 2012” by Katie Fehrenbacher on GigaOM
Katie Fehrenbacher closes out the year at GigaOM with her list of the best and worst trends in clean tech in 2012. Some are company-specific, but are … read more
Weekly Review December 8-14: Trends in 2013
With December upon us, everyone is looking ahead to 2013. We, at Invested Development, are doing the same across our sector focuses and looking at trends for the upcoming year. Here are this week’s articles that reflect on trends and what’s next in alternative energy and mobile technology.
“Which Tech Trends Will Be Making Waves in 2013” on IT News Africa
Tablets, smartphones, and 4G and LTE data speeds made a big splash … read more
Weekly Review December 1-7
We’re always looking for entrepreneurs who are willing to tackle the challenge of making alternative energy affordable. This week, we’re sharing news on others also looking for ways to make the cost of energy affordable around the world.
“Powering Up: Innovating to Solve the Cost of Energy in Africa” by Will Mutua on Afrinnovator
Despite the discovery and availability of oil and gas across Africa, nations are still struggling to meet their populations’ … read more
Weekly Review November 24-30: What Makes Kenya Unique
This week in the blogosphere, we found several stories that evidence exactly what makes Kenya so unique.
“Connected tech communities and competitive advantage: the Kenyan way” by Erik Hersman on White African
Erik Hersman, one of the leaders in the Nairobi technology community, writes on the differences among the major technology hubs in Africa: Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Each region is unique in its own way: Nigeria has the most people while … read more
Weekly Review November 17-23: Alternative Energy Innovation
Since we are always on the lookout for our next investment for the BSP Fund, we stay up-to-date on innovations, regulations, and investment (both public and private) in the alternative energy sector. Here’s what piqued our interest this week in alternative energy.
“The next generation of air energy storage players” by Katie Fehrenbacher on GigaOM
Given how important energy storage is in both developed and developing markets, we’re always interested in new storage … read more
Weekly Review November 10-16: Technology Innovation in Emerging Markets
Technology innovation is emerging from all corners of the world, aided by an increasingly connected and growing youthful demographic. Read on for highlights on the latest opinions and news on technology innovation for development.
“What will it take to unearth Africa’s next great innovator?” by Stuart Thomas on Memeburn
We know that Africa is full of eager entrepreneurs and innovators. To find them is often the hard part. We also know that the … read more
Weekly Review November 3-9: Energy Startups and Entrepreneurial Initiatives
Several energy startups and entrepreneurial initiatives caught our attention this week. Here’s the round up of what we found intriguing and exciting.
“Peter Thiel, Khosla, Bill Gates back air energy storage startup LightSail” by Katie Fehrenbacher on GigaOM
Several investors have backed LightSail in a $37.3 million series D round. LightSail has designed a next-gen compressed air energy storage technology, which is essentially an air-based battery with twice the efficiency of its predecessors. … read more
Weekly Review October 27-November 2 – Mobile Phones in Africa: Growth, Innovation, and Events
The growing adoption of mobile phones continues to spur innovation throughout Africa.
“CCK Sector Statistics Report – 4th Quarter 2012” on iHub
The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) releases quarterly reports on the use and growth of information and communication technologies. iHub provides a short summary of the key statistics relating to mobile phone subscriptions and data and internet use. Now 75% of Kenyans have a mobile phone subscription; 36% have Internet … read more
Weekly Review October 20-26: What’s Happening in Impact Investing?
The industry is still buzzing after the fifth annual Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) Conference in San Francisco. In addition, there was big news this week on a key impact investment and updates from the unexpected players that have entered the market.… read more
Weekly Review October 13-19: Alternative Energy Innovation, Investors, and Support
This week’s headlines on energy are particularly exciting: we love to learn about innovative energy technologies. Even better, we’re glad to see that they’re earning support in the markets that will benefit the most from the innovation.… read more
Weekly Review October 6-12: How Mobile is Changing the Economy, Media, and More
Telecoms and mobile phones have changed the way organizations interact with customers at the base of the economic pyramid. This week, we’re sharing stories on the impact they’ve had on common challenges across sectors in emerging markets.… read more
Weekly Review September 29 – October 5
The fifth annual SOCAP conference convened this week, and the impact investing stories are reverberating around the world. Here are some of our favorites from the week.
Did you miss the SOCAP hype? You can catch up by reading the most popular tweets from the week (here) and watching the videos (here).
Weekly Review September 22-28
Innovative applications of sustainable energy can solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. This week’s stories focus on the innovators and leaders working to make the vision a reality.… read more
Weekly Review September 15-21
From mobile developers to telecoms to the hardware itself, the mobile technology sector continues to make exciting progress in India, Africa, and Latin America.… read more
Weekly Review September 8-14
The impact investing industry is preparing new programs, insights, and, most importantly, entrepreneurs to live up to the big predictions for 2013, which has already been claimed as “the year of impact investing.”… read more
Weekly Review September 1-7
The Economist, the International Energy Agency, and the World Economic Forum, and the Indian government each advocated for innovation in alternative energy technologies this week. Continue reading to find out what they said.… read more
Weekly Review August 25-31
African innovation is making headlines everywhere from The Economist to The Guardian. It’s nice to see that the grassroots feel of startup tech community is not lost in translation.
Weekly Review August 18-24
After the enormous grid failure in India, there is a new awareness of the need for alternative energy. Savvy entrepreneurs and established businesses are taking advantage and jumping on the opportunity to expand their market. Clearly a big hurdle is fully understanding the costs of renewables and working to minimize them. Luckily, there are plenty of smart folks working on that as well.… read more
Weekly Review August 11-17
Around the world, businesses both big (like Nokia) and small (like Wari and Mi-Fone) are working in emerging markets to deliver mobile phone products and services tailored directly to local demand. From long-lasting battery life to the continued expansion of mobile money services, mobile continues to present new opportunities for innovation.… read more
Weekly Review August 4-10
Weekly Review July 28-August 3
In light of this week’s power crisis in India, our weekly review articles this week focus on the energy sector in India and the clean technology solutions available. Be sure to check out our post from earlier this year on the reality of the energy sector in India and the government’s mission to install 20 GW of solar by 2020.… read more