Our dream at engageSPARK – the first product under the Opportunity Labs umbrella – is to make it very easy to use the mobile phone for social good. We have identified some neat ways to achieve this and we can’t wait to share engageSPARK with everyone once...
“You are not the user.” This is the first lesson a designer is taught in school when learning how to design a product whether it is a toothbrush, a flight navigation system or a simple website. To design an easy-to-use product, a designer must be a user...
Choosing a legal form (or structure) for your new U.S.-based social enterprise seems like it would be a piece of cake: (1) call lawyer; (2) tell lawyer what you want to do; (3) lawyer takes care of everything. Actually, it’s not so simple – especially when every...
Last week, I read an interesting blog post from Linda Raftree about an NYC and London Technology Salon session on how mobile phones are improving the reach and impact of women empowerment initiatives. In the Tech Salon, they quote a GSMA estimate that mobile...
A small, poor village in Niger has 100 adults, 50 men and 50 women. The women are the engines of change. They work hard. They save money for their families. They make sure that their children go to school. But – they can’t read. The overall literacy rate in Niger is...
Last week was the mobile phone’s 40th birthday! While it seems hard to imagine a world without mobile phones, in 2000 mobile phone penetration in many developing countries was less than 6%. Now, mobile phones are so ubiquitous that it is surprising to see...
engageSPARK is a not-for-profit social business that will empower development organizations such as NGOs and governments to dramatically extend the reach and impact of their pro-poor programs. engageSPARK will be the first solution that enables organizations around...
