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  • Thailand's Disease Detectives

    "Poor man Instagram" is how vets at Chiang Mai University describe their system of pandemic preparedness and emergency prevention. Recruiting community members throughout the region to be disease detectives, the scientists train these volunteers to use a mobile app that allows them to document dead animals that may have been sick with an illness that could pose a threat to humans. When scientists are alerted of cases, they are then able to investigate and intervene if the situation merits danger.

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  • The Stickers that Save Lives

    Vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death for young adults in nearly every country around the world, but the issue receives less policy attention or funding than diseases or terrorism. One clever initiative called Zusha in Kenya is using a very simple method - stickers - to spread safety messages on public transportation, and have already reduced bus accidents by as much as 25%.

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  • The woman who wants you to rent used baby clothes

    Movies, books, apartments: these are all things we commonly rent. One Danish couple is adding baby clothes to the list to reduce waste.

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  • Turning Haiti's Plastic Trash into Cash

    Eight million metric tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean every year, including in Haiti where it litters the beaches and causes sanitation issues. A social entrepreneur from Executives Without Borders partnered with Haiti Recycling to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and sustainably monetize the collecting and recycling of plastic waste through a new organization, Ramase Lajan. When oil prices tanked and the recycling centers struggled to maintain a profit, social enterprise Thread stepped in to take up the plastic, turning it into fabric to make socially responsible goods for sale.

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  • Turning Goats into Water

    Fariel Salahuddin was determined to tackle the extreme lack of access to fresh water she encountered in rural Pakistani communities, but she wanted the model to be sustainable, not dependent on donations. Most of the communities didn't have regular access to rupees to help sustain their solar water pump micro-enterprises - what they did have, however, were goats. Salahuddin set up a scheme where villagers could pay for their clean water access with livestock instead of cash, which she then sells using Facebook at high rates during Muslim festivals to generate a sustainable revenue source.

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  • Getting Help in Emergencies in Super-Quick Time

    Jason Friesen, an American paramedic who had served in Haiti after the earthquake, realized that many poor communities in the Caribbean were lacking the equivalent of the United States’ 911 emergency medical services, and were facing increased death tolls as a consequence. Friesen realized he could help such communities set up emergency response systems through the use of volunteers and a simple text message exchange. Now, his organization Trek Medics simplifies and democratizes the emergency dispatch system, and, as a result, saves lives in rural communities.

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  • Can plastic roads help save the planet?

    Even with such increasingly popular trends as reusable grocery bags and biodegradable food containers, 70% of plastic products end up in landfills; but with the help of a local start-up, MacRebur, several townships in Scotland are cutting back on this quantity while simultaneously servicing and improving the quality of their transportation networks.

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  • The people making films above the 60th parallel

    By leveraging technology, artists living above the 60th parallel are increasing indigenous representation in filmmaking. In Yellowknife, Canada, aRTLess Collective’s Dead North Film Festival uses live streaming to reach thousands of residents across remote—and otherwise largely inaccessible—northern areas. The film festival connects and empowers indigenous northerners to represent themselves and their culture through film.

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  • The Data Donators

    Around the world, more and more people are launching projects through mobile apps that use smartphones to collect massive amounts of data for solving chronic issues. By asking thousands of volunteers to donate their data for the greater good, researchers can access data in quantities that were previously unobtainable.

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  • Postmen Delivering Kindness to the Elderly

    On the island of Jersey, postal workers don’t just deliver the mail: they also check up on elderly people during their routes. With a quick face-to-face chat, they check that they’ve taken their medication and if there’s anything else they need. The project has caught the attention of post offices (and health professionals) around the world as an approach against the social care crisis for a rapidly-aging population.

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