New Technologies Are Solving Old Problems in Even Older Industries: Banking,...
Mobile phones, social media, cloud computing, and data analytics - particularly when combined in unprecedented ways - are enabling a host of new business models to emerge for everything from catching...
View ArticleRecycleBank: Transforming the Entire Recycling Industry
Despite endless campaigns, American recycling rates remain stubbornly low. For more than a decade, the overall solid-waste recycling rate has hovered around a 33 percent, a far cry from Denmark’s...
View ArticleMobile Technologies: The Great Equalizer
If you have a smartphone and a strong signal, you can access a world’s worth of knowledge with the tap of a finger. But the mobile revolution won’t be judged by connectivity alone; how this resource is...
View ArticleBig Data’s Big Moment: From Anecdotes to Evidence
Although the world is awash in data, the organizations collecting it can rarely parse its meaning. But some organizations, such as the city of Chicago, are learning how to turn data overload into...
View ArticleGoogle & Parkinson’s: Searching for Answers
A great meal is usually the result of inspired cooking: an ordinary ingredient transformed by interacting with another. Great innovation often requires a similar combination of resources. When...
View ArticleSocial Media For Social Good: Powering Collaborative Problem Solving
Social media has penetrated even the most far flung regions, now reaching over 80 percent of the world population. Growth has been most rapid in developing areas, where a quarter of all time spent...
View ArticleFighting Cancer with Cloud Computing: A giant leap in the right direction
Scientists often say that they are standing on the shoulders of giants. They recognize that their own research builds upon the foundational work of so many others before them. It took years of...
View ArticleBusiness Models That Scale: Radical innovations in delivering public benefit
Revolutionary new business models are springing up around the globe, producing dramatically better results at lower cost, challenge existing ways of doing business, and opening the door for new...
View ArticleCar Sharing: New technology is changing the way we drive
For many city dwellers, owning a car is a major hassle. You may use your car only occasionally, yet still have to fight for parking spaces and shell out a fortune for parking on top of your monthly...
View ArticleHealth Care: Lowering costs through innovation
In India, wavemakers of all stripes are hard at work developing news business models to break the trade-off between high-quality health care and low health care costs.
View Article“School-In-A-Box”: Franchising Education
However unglamorous they may seem in the West, lean franchises have played a transformative role in developing countries, offering a sturdy ladder out of poverty. Similar no-frills solutions are now...
View ArticleAVON Model Modernizes Business in Africa
Since the nineteenth century, when its founder began putting women to work as sales representatives, cosmetics behemoth Avon International has been turning relationships into sales funnels and the...
View ArticleCity of Boston: Connecting citizens to solutions
In cities like Boston, public works problems pop up like mushrooms after a rain-fall. Potholes develop, graffiti appears, road kill must be removed. Increasingly, the city is using crowdsourcing to...
View ArticleA Crappy Situation: Reinventing the Toilet
The modern flush toilet was invented in the eighteenth century. The substantial amount of water and sewer infrastructure needed to operate one hasn’t changed much since. Consequently, about 2.5 billion...
View ArticleBetter Block: Breaking the Law to Build a Better Community
Better Block started with a little impatience and a lot of raw energy. After experiencing the buzzing plazas and boulevards of Europe, Jason Roberts returned home to the Oak Cliff neighborhood of...
View ArticleKIVA: Crowdfunding for Social Good
Let’s say you read about a sustainable aquaculture farm that is bringing much-needed revenue and nutrition to a poor rural region. Previously, you’ve had little opportunity to invest, and you probably...
View ArticleCode for America: Peace Corps for Geeks
On his first day in office, President Barack Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, ordering federal agencies to make their mountains of data available to the public through...
View ArticlePrizes for Public Value
On April 20, 2010, a blast rocked the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Flames engulfed the collapsing platform as rescuers evacuated more than one hundred oil workers. A plume of...
View ArticleKaggle: Playing with Data to Solve Societal Problems
When professional graders score essay portions of standardized tests, the price tag runs from $2 to $3 per essay. Multiplied by millions of students, that’s a hefty tab. Thus teachers make do with the...
View ArticleWaste Ventures: A Solution to Developing-World Waste Management
Selling investors on a radically new approach to waste disposal, one that serves impoverished regions where garbage heaps are common, is no easy feat. It’s a messy business, rife with health and...
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