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Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

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51–60 of 68 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#51

Dimagi

I work here and it's great. http://www.dimagi.com.

Dimagi's mission is to use technology to improve the lives of people living in underserved communities everywhere, especially through the use of mobile technology to strengthen programs in many sectors. Dimagi works in over 30 countries, mostly in the Indian subcontinent, Africa. The main product CommCare (http://www.commcarehq.org), allows for NGOs to write and maintain their own mobile applications without programming knowledge, and Dimagi also offers extensive consulting services with our partners as they start to introduce mobile software into their program. CommCare applications are geared toward usage by illiterate and low-literate users in sectors such as community health, clinical settings, agriculture, small business, infectious disease, maternal and child health, counselling for people in stigmatized and vulnerable professions, and can be used for many others; and the underlying software is repeatedly field-tested for usability in these settings. And it is awesome.

Dimagi has strong field teams around the world, with offices in Boston, Delhi, Cape Town, abd Senegal. All of Dimagi's core software developers also routinely spend weeks at a time at at project sites and shadowing a field manager, usually about twice a year per person. In my opinion, Dimagi is the most mature, on-the-ground, and innovative company of its type, but, hey I just work here.

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#53

TechChange ( http://techchange.org ) is building an online learning platform for training aid and non-profit workers in the developing world.

I should also mention that we're offering a paid internship/fellowship for college students this summer in Washington, DC. More information here:

http://techchange.org/fellowship/

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#54

I'm wondering if there's anything along the lines of 'Startups* Without Borders'? *Or 'Innovators' or 'Technologists', if you prefer.

You might check out TechnoServe: http://www.technoserve.org/get-involved/volunteer

I believe some of their projects make use of technology, but it's more business/innovation oriented.

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#55

http://Hotels.ng . 10,000 hotels in Nigeria and none of them online till we added them. Done 6000, another 20k or so left to go across the continent.

I immediately thought of your startup when I read this post. Glad to hear it is still going strong.

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#56

I'm wondering if there's anything along the lines of 'Startups* Without Borders'? *Or 'Innovators' or 'Technologists', if you prefer.

There is "Engineers Without Borders" although I think they are more focused on traditional engineering disciplines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineers_Without_Borders

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#57
Segovia is trying to make it easier for governments and NGO's to administer cash transfer programs. It's spun out of GiveDirectly (which is on Givewell's top rated charities list).

I met the team, pretty strong, might have worked for them but they didn't want engineers working remotely (they're based in NYC).

http://thesegovia.com/

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#58

What3words.com We have addressed every 3x3m on the planet with 3 common words. More memorable, faster and less errors than alphanumeric systems. Currently in 8 languages with more including Swahili & Arabic coming. This could mean an address for the 4 billion unaddressed, as well as water points, schools, managing disease outbreaks. More here: Vimeo.com/what3words/about. I work for what3words.

This sounds amazing!

Re: Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?

#60
post #18

Bitpesa: http://bitpesa.co Based in London and Nairobi, they've built a Bitcoin-based service that enables migrants & expats to send money quickly and safely back to their relatives (called remittances in FinTech parlance). I'm not directly associated with them, but we've met many times at Nairobi's monthly Bitcoin meetup.

Bitcoin remittances are going to be huge... I wonder if stripe will undercut them with their flat 50 cent fee for Bitcoin to fiat

Doubt it. Since when is their fee a flat 50c btw? Afaik they're free now (beta) and going live next month at 0.5%.

And let's not forget, they have a presence in North-America, Western-Europe and Australia. Not even e.g. Japan. And hell, they're in beta in all of those countries except five.

But more importantly, they're not a remittance company. So I really doubt we'll see a remittance product from them anytime soon.

But who knows. It's a legitimate business venture. If you can process a payment in bitcoin and pay out in a local currency and do remittance that way, you can process a remittance 'payment', too. The problem isn't really the technical or business part though, it's that it brings up a lot of KYC/AML responsibilities that facilitating retail shopping doesn't. So unless you want to really build out a remittance product, you can't just do something like this 'on the side'. And Stripe is way too focused on payments to jump into remittance properly anytime soon.

Especially when there aren't any deep liquidity pools for bitcoin in Africa (i.e. a lack of exchanges). Phillipines, India, all of that could feasibly happen soon (not by Stripe, but other companies), as liquidity does exist (and they're big remittance corridors), but undercutting Bitpesa anytime soon is unlikely. Bitpesa itself is already hustling to make this work with a local presence and its a bit of a mystery to me who their liquidity provider is atm.

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