Technology and entrepreneurship
This magazine (PDF) by Sight and Life navigates various approaches in which technology and entrepreneurship can improve the nutrition landscape around the world. Technology plays an increasingly important role in enabling the implementation of high-quality public health nutrition interventions. Similarly, innovative entrepreneurial solutions are required to improve access to proven nutrition solutions and ensure sustainability. The article “New allies accelerate the fight against malnutrition” introduces five innovative products to dramatically improved field-based measurements of nutritional status, outlines their use and impact and highlights the continued need to champion the partnerships and investment that make breakthrough health innovation possible. “Using mobile technology for nutrition programs” offers a conceptual framework that nutrition practitioners can use to harness the potential of mobile health (mHealth) interventions. As malnutrition continues to overburden many health systems, mHealth offers huge potential for strengthening and improving existing initiatives and outcomes, so long as they can be implemented successfully. In “Nutrition entrepreneurs” a study to identify sustainable social enterprises that can integrate nutrition interventions at scale and benefit large numbers of underserved communities is described. Five promising business models: microfinancing, social franchising, network orchestration, freemium, and enterprise development can help guide practitioners, policy-makers and influencers in the nutrition sector in designing, replicating and implementing scalable nutrition programs.