A startup in the Philippines called Medifund has come up with an answer to an unsolved issue in the medical field: understaffed hospitals. The shortage of doctors and nurses in Asia has largely to do with the high cost of medical education. To tackle this problem, Medifund’s founder...
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Has technology sparked a modern Renaissance? Over 5 centuries ago, in Northern Italy, the Renaissance brought in a bold new chapter of thinking, an expression of culture, scientific and intellectual discovery. In modern vernacular, we would call it ‘disruptive.’ It really meant, ‘rebirth.’ We are now...
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“Crowdfunding is the democratization of [funding] for startups.” People get the opportunity to directly vote with their wallets for the services or products they want. Though massively popular and hyped-up by the media in the US and Western Europe, where does it leave Africa? How...
Continue ReadingThe way entrepreneurs raise money is about to change. The Securities and Exchange Commission is drafting regulations for equity crowdfunding – a not yet legal practice allowing companies to sell stakes to large numbers of small investors, potentially online. Startups looking to pursue those dollars will need to think...
Continue ReadingCrowdfunding is a tool for sustainable innovation and community building that could end up making our neighborhoods safer, our country cleaner, and our democracy more vibrant. Maybe there's an unsightly vacant lot in your neighborhood that needs cleaning up. Or maybe Hurricane Sandy or an ExxonMobil...
Continue ReadingCrowdfunding expert Kendall Almerico, CEO of crowdfunding website ClickStartMe, commented on Italy moving ahead of the United States by passing its own equity crowdfunding laws and, in the coming days, putting them into effect. Almerico says that this puts Italy ahead of the U.S., whose own...
Continue ReadingCrowdfunding has been a godsend for getting lots of projects off the ground that otherwise may not have attracted dollars from traditional powers-that-be in retail manufacturing, music, movies, and the like. So at a time when the federal dollars that typically fund medical research are...
Continue ReadingWith the world on the computer screen, Jase Wilson can get philosophical about cities. Zooming in on Tokyo’s cityscape at night, brought to him courtesy of Google, Wilson says: “It’s like a circuit board. It’s beautiful.” Next to the sparkling grid of one of the world’s largest...
Continue ReadingOften times crowdfunding in the United States is discussed as a dichotomy. On one hand you have the brand of crowdfunding that takes place now, the donation- and rewards-based models that fuel sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and countless others. On the other hand you have lending- and equity-based...
Continue ReadingNew York-based startup Pave launched with the idea to allow investors to put their money not into startups or companies or ideas, but into people. The idea was to highlight a group of potential prospects who wanted to get a particular personal project off the ground and...
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