Technology and Innovation

A Chat with Katie: Vera Fellowship

Katie McCloskey, a 2014 Fellow based in Boston, shares her thoughts on her first six months at Vera. Born and raised in Northern California, Katie graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Human Geography. What about … Read More

Talking about the Bottom Line at Chicago Ideas Week

In October, Vera CEO and Co-Founder Zak Kaufman attended Chicago Ideas Week as a Bluhm/Helfand Social Innovation Fellow. Throughout the week, the four Fellows had opportunities to engage with leaders in business, politics, and philanthropy. Highlights included lunch with Chicago … Read More

Vera’s Fellowship Program: Reflections on Technology, Social Impact, and Personal Growth

With applications open for the 2014-2015 Vera Fellowship program, we sat down with Jill Shah, a current Fellow in Vera’s Mumbai office, to provide potential applicants with insight into her Fellowship experience. Born in Mumbai and raised in northern New … Read More

Sanergy and Captricity: Appropriate Technology for Challenging Environments

About 2.3 million people, or 60 percent of Nairobi’s population, live in slums, and most have little to no access to formal sanitation services. Stagnant rivulets of human waste that trickle past homes and alongside narrow dirt roads in the … Read More

Powering Innovation in East Africa

Over the past three years we’ve worked with some incredible organizations. In designing custom Force.com solutions we’ve given our partners an empowering tool that gives them access to their own real-time data, allowing them to register rural farmers as microfinance … Read More

Humans: There’s no App for That

“SMS makes organizations more responsive to community needs!” “Social media brings us closer to the beneficiaries of our work!” “Mobile is changing everything!” “Social entrepreneurs everywhere are measuring and scaling social impact!” A quick look at any social impact-related blog … Read More