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Hidden Global Trends
Explore intriguing non-Western tech, business, and social trends that are shaping the world but remain under the radar. Stay informed about the innovations and ideas that could redefine your perspective.
- Singapore’s framework (phased in from end-2024) mandates pension and injury coverage for 79 000 ride-hailing & delivery workers—without reclassifying them—offering a data-driven model other Asian nations are studying.
Mandatory Social Protection for Platform Gig Workers (Singapore)
Region: Singapore | Sector: Social policy / labour tech | Stage: Implementation phase (2024-2026) | Earliest notable year: 2024
- Oman-based startup 44.01 injects captured CO₂ into peridotite rock, turning it to stone within 12 months. A 2024 ADNOC partnership will build the world’s largest mineralisation site in Fujairah, heralding Gulf leadership in permanent carbon removal.
Peridotite Carbon Mineralisation at Scale (44.01)
Region: Oman & UAE | Sector: Climate tech | Stage: Commercial pilots (2023-2024) | Earliest notable year: 2023
- Startup Unergy’s solar-powered swap station cut e-motorcycle charging to 86 seconds in a 2024 Medellín pilot. Gogoro-Terpel plan 14 GoStations nationwide with US$50 m investment—leapfrogging plug-in infrastructure.
Battery-Swapping Networks for Two-Wheelers in Colombia
Region: Colombia | Sector: Clean mobility | Stage: Pilot→early rollout (2024) | Earliest notable year: 2024
- Indonesian unicorn eFishery equips 70 000 fish & shrimp ponds with IoT feeders and AI analytics, optimising feed use and linking farmers to finance. Its US$200 m Series D (2023) targets one million ponds by 2025.
AI-Driven Smart Aquaculture Platforms (eFishery)
Region: Indonesia / SE Asia | Sector: Agri-tech / AI | Stage: Rapid scale-up (2023-2025) | Earliest notable year: 2023
- A €23.3 m UNCDF/UNDP-backed programme is deploying pay-per-use solar cold rooms across nine Kenyan counties to reduce post-harvest losses and integrate farmers into digital supply chains.
Solar-Powered Cold-Storage Hubs for Kenyan Smallholders
Region: Kenya | Sector: Agri-tech & climate | Stage: Scale-up funding secured (2024) | Earliest notable year: 2023
- Lagos-based Kaltani raised US$4 m seed to build 20 aggregation centres, processing 15 000 t of plastic annually with geo-mapping for traceability. Its 2022-24 expansion positions it among West Africa’s largest circular-economy players amid new EPR rules.
Kaltani’s Tech-Enabled Plastic Recycling Network
Region: Nigeria | Sector: Circular economy / recycling | Stage: Seed-to-scale expansion (2022-2024) | Earliest notable year: 2022
- The Asian Development Bank approved a US$350 m facility (Jun-2025) to back fintechs and banks serving two million women entrepreneurs, supported by new e-wallet KYC rules—narrowing Pakistan’s gender finance gap.
Pakistan’s Women-Inclusive Digital Lending Programme
Region: Pakistan | Sector: Fintech / gender finance | Stage: Government-backed rollout (2025) | Earliest notable year: 2024
- Platforms like Meesho and Mall91 now drive ~15 % of India’s US$120 bn e-commerce GMV. By blending WhatsApp reselling, live video and UPI payments, they reach hundreds of millions of non-English shoppers long ignored by Western media.
Vernacular Social Commerce in India’s Tier-III Cities
Region: India (Tier-II/III) | Sector: Social commerce / consumer tech | Stage: High-growth adoption (2024-2025) | Earliest notable year: 2019; inflection 2023
- Start-ups such as Teesas, uLesson and KioKit deliver curriculum videos and quizzes that work fully offline on low-cost tablets or SD cards. A 2025 review notes rapid user growth across Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania as data prices fall, with multi-million seed rounds localising content in dozens of African languages.
Offline-First EdTech Platforms Bridging Africa’s Connectivity Gap
Region: Pan-Africa | Sector: Digital education | Stage: Early-growth (2024-2025) | Earliest notable year: 2023
- Uganda’s government and Nexus Green are installing 400 solar-powered irrigation sites in a US$90 m programme to reach 25 000 farmers. Pay-as-you-go terms spread costs over harvest cycles, boosting yields and replacing diesel pumps.
Solar-Powered ‘Pay-Go’ Irrigation for Ugandan Smallholders
Region: Uganda | Sector: Agri-tech / productive solar | Stage: Government rollout (2023-2024) | Earliest notable year: 2023
- Indonesian innovators like Greenhope’s Ecoplas have commercialised home-compostable shopping bags and resin from cassava starch, leveraging tightening single-use-plastic bans. Analysts project 7-8 % CAGR through 2030 as exports rise to Asia-Pacific retailers and hotel groups.
Cassava-Starch Bioplastics Surging from Indonesia
Region: Indonesia / ASEAN | Sector: Circular economy / biomaterials | Stage: Commercial scaling (2024) | Earliest notable year: 2022
- Agri-tech Kilimo closed a US$7.5 m Series A (Jun-2024) to pay farmers for irrigation savings verified with AI and satellites. Corporates such as Microsoft and Coca-Cola buy these quantified water-savings credits, creating a Latin-American water-credits market now expanding across Mexico, Chile and Argentina.
Kilimo’s ‘Volumetric Water Benefits’ Marketplace
Region: Latin America (Argentina, Chile, Mexico) | Sector: Agri-climate tech / water credits | Stage: Series A expansion (2024) | Earliest notable year: 2023
- Nairobi startup BasiGo raised US$42 m (Series A + debt) in Oct-2024 to scale its subscription model that lets private bus owners switch to locally-assembled electric buses for a daily fee. With pilots in Kigali and 300+ reservations, BasiGo plans 1 000 e-bus deliveries within three years.
BasiGo ‘Pay-As-You-Drive’ Electric Buses
Region: Kenya & Rwanda | Sector: E-mobility / climate tech | Stage: Series A scale-up (2024) | Earliest notable year: 2023
- Kenya-based CYNK quietly launched in late-2023, letting climate projects directly issue and forward-sell verified carbon credits on a blockchain marketplace. A debut trade of 2 Mt—the largest first-day volume for any African platform—signals rising demand for locally generated offsets and new fintech rails for climate finance.
CYNK – Africa’s First Blockchain Carbon Credits Exchange
Region: Kenya & Sub-Saharan Africa | Sector: Climate-fintech / carbon markets | Stage: Commercial launch (2023) | Earliest notable year: 2023