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Investing for Development

Financial firms are embracing people’s desire to invest in ways that support social change, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The Swell Impact 400, which launched at the end of July 2018, is a customizable portfolio made up of firms that address at least one of the UN SDGs.

An “impact investing platform,” Swell was incubated with Pacific Life, a 150-year-old California life insurance company.

Swell says firms in the Impact 400 portfolio score highly on one or more third-party Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) rating methodologies, and demonstrate strong diversity and inclusion practices, as well as deriving revenue from business aligned with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. ◆

Improving the user experience at Ford

Ever struggled with a product or a user manual and wondered why a company didn’t make more effort to consider the end user in the design?

Ford Motor Company seems to have taken that lament into consideration when it determined who will steer the organization into a new era. Why Ford Hired A Furniture Maker as CEO, a story in the March issue of The Atlantic magazine, examines how the automaker came to hire Jim Hackett, who ran office furniture firm Steelcase for 20 years.

Part of Ford’s thinking is that simplifying and perfecting the interaction between person and machine is the key to future success, particularly when it comes to the driverless cars of the future. ◆

Water, power and improved credit via blockchain

Ask your neighbor about Blockchain and the Internet of Things, and you may not get an answer about their practical application. Swiss technology firm BitLumens uses these technologies to provide off-grid solar power and create access to water, electricity and financial inclusion in rural areas of developing-

nations, including Central America, southeast Asia and East Africa.

The company’s devices form microgrids in places with no existing infrastructure. Its software collects data and sends it to the blockchain. People can decide to make this data available to banks for microcredits and other financial services. ◆

photo by Anwar al Halah

A woman cooks Taboon, a traditional Middle Eastern flatbread, during a MEDA board visit to Jordan in February.