Transforming banking for the poor

In combatting poverty, a giant informal economic system has quietly emerged in Africa. Women participate in micro-finance organizations that loan money in order to allow them to create businesses and become self-managing.

Can we improve the methods we use to teach math in schools — so that everyone develops proficiency? A grade-school math program is changing how children learn based on the assumption that all children can achieve a high level of understanding.

Low-income students are always looking for ways to finance their education. A new system using “human capital contracts” to pay for higher education isn’t as scary as it sounds.

Many subprime borrowers in the United States are financially unable to buy a home themselves. An unconventional lender is trying to make it easier for low-income people to buy houses despite the tighter requirements that other lenders adopted after the mortgage bust.

54 million people in the United States, and 4.5 billion globally, have no credit to their name - making it nearly impossible for them to buy homes, apply for jobs and receive loans. Investors and lenders make an effort to help those with 'invisible credit' scores in financing essentials like homes or cars.

A overview of 2014's Fixes columns - connecting the dots between 60 or so ways that people are trying to change the world.

Due to recent brain development research, educators are working to add more math education into pre-school and kindergarten classes. Studies show that children of this age are actually extremely receptive to numbers and learning geometry.

Critics in today's world often say that computers and technology are impeding the social skills of the very young. But Zoo U, a computer game for children, helps kids develop the skills they need such as empathy, impulse control, and communication.

Clean water and healthy ecosystems are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. With floating islands and other inventions, eco-entrepreneur Bruce Kania thinks that biomimicry - such as reconstructing wetlands and growing biofilms - can tackle the toughest of water problems.

Concerned with colony collapse syndrome in honey bees worldwide, scientists, farmers and tech companies teamed up in Australia to create a micro-sensor that collects data on the bee's environment.