Kenya split Menengai's risk: AfDB drilled the steam, IPPs built the plants
AfDB's $108M geothermal push had state-owned GDC prove the steam field, then three private firms added 105 MW — ending Kenya's hydropower-linked shortages.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDBharatPe gave shops one free QR, then lent off the payment trail
BharatPe's free interoperable QR won India's shopkeepers, and their transaction history became the credit file that unlocked collateral-free loans.
Read the caseJapan made cartel bids wobble by scoring more than price
MLIT procurement made public-works bidders win on noisy proposal scores as well as price, weakening the cartel script.
Read the caseDove's #ChangeTheCompliment taught adults to praise girls for what they do, not looks
Dove's own data showed 80% of South African girls feel shame about their looks, so the brand taught adults a better compliment
Read the caseDuoc UC scaled blue-collar education on three legal foundations
Born from a 1968 student-and-union project at Chile's Catholic University, Duoc grew to 13 campuses by splitting into three mission-matched foundations.
Read the caseKao's 1987 Attack compact detergent sold 'less product' as a better product
Kao's Attack (1987) cut detergent volume to a quarter with denser particles — households bought smaller boxes, Kao's share passed 50% within a year
Read the caseQuantum dots made color a size property — and put nano-light into Samsung's TVs
Ekimov (1981), Brus (1983) and Bawendi (1993) showed particle size sets a quantum dot's color; Samsung's 2017 QLED TVs commercialized it.
Read the caseDongpeng's cap codes turned a 1-yuan prize into a channel control system
Dongpeng's 'one-yuan joy' cap code ties every bottle to a region, so stores refuse gray-market stock and channel leakage stays below 3%.
Read the caseApple's tracking prompt made 96% of US iPhone users refuse cross-app ad tracking
Two weeks after iOS 14.5 made tracking opt-in, just 4% of US iPhone users allowed it — consent redesigned at the OS level
Read the caseDentsu taught AI the eyes of Japan's master tuna graders
Japan's master tuna graders are dying out — Dentsu paired tail-photo cross-sections with masters' ratings and taught an AI to grade tuna anywhere instantly.
Read the caseCoors Light painted rooftop ads that literally cool the buildings below
Reflective white 'Chillboards' on Miami rooftops cut roof heat up to 50°F and AC costs up to 20% — an ad that performs the beer's 'Made to Chill' promise.
Read the caseAirborne loaded jets through the passenger door, skipping the freighter conversion
Too small to buy purpose-built freighters, Airborne patented a box that loads through a passenger door and flew used airliners as-is.
Read the caseKakaoBank rode KakaoTalk's user base to a million accounts in five days
South Korea's KakaoBank opened in July 2017 with no branches, drew a million customers in five days from KakaoTalk's base, and was profitable within two years
Read the caseOpen Invention Network pooled 3M+ patents to shield Linux from infringement suits
Companies cross-licensed patents royalty-free for Linux, making open source safer and cheaper to defend.
Read the caseNedbank advised South Africans to start smoking — to expose the retirement-savings gap
A bank's print ad recommended a filthy habit: smoke, so you die before your money runs out. The dark joke made retirement saving impossible to ignore.
Read the caseOffice for National Statistics unlocked cloud migration with a workforce-first plan
ONS paired security transparency with team-specific communication, training and small proof-of-concepts to win buy-in for a cloud-first operating model.
Read the caseNetafim's drip irrigation made the desert farm — one drop at a time
A leaking pipe once grew a tree; Simcha Blass and Kibbutz Hatzerim turned the drip into Netafim (1965) — now the world's drip-irrigation leader with ~30% share
Read the caseFingerprintJS proved installed apps can identify users across every major browser
FingerprintJS showed a site can identify the same person across Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Tor by probing which apps are installed
Read the caseUSPS priced the box, not the parcel, and 'if it fits, it ships' won shippers
Since November 2004, USPS flat-rate boxes cost $7.70 regardless of weight or destination, simplifying heavy parcel shipping.
Read the caseDave Winer froze RSS 2.0 and gave its copyright to Harvard — and the format won
While rivals built a better format in committee, Winer made RSS 2.0 a finished, unowned thing: no roadmap, no versions, nothing left to argue about.
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