Articles by Sadna Samaranayake
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Guest Articles
Thursday
October 27
2011Affordable Housing for All Series: In the Race for Affordable Housing, Who Has the Head Start?
In the race for affordable housing for all, is there a clear leader? Is government the biggest player in BoP affordable housing? Are NGOs? Private construction firms? The answer might surprise you. Far ahead of the pack in resources mobilized, progress made and sheer numbers of BoP housing solutions implemented, are the BoP households themselves.
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Guest Articles
Wednesday
October 12
2011Social Entrepreneurship Coming Full Circle, at Columbia’s Social Enterprise Conference
This year’s Columbia Social Enterprise Conference, on the topic of "Social Innovation in a Networked WorId," left me almost certain that the social entrepreneurship movement is currently witnessing such a full circle moment on several fronts, most notably, when it comes to our collective understanding of what a "networked world" means.
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- Social Enterprise
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Thursday
October 6
2011Making the Market VS Making It In the Market, What One Laptop Per Child Can Teach Us
Since its much publicized launch in 2005, Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child program has been both lauded and criticized. In a recent conversation hosted by NYU’s Reynolds Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs, he was steadfast in defending against criticisms about the efficacy of OLPC, but signaled new directions for educating poor children.
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- Technology
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Thursday
September 22
2011How would Muhammad Yunus Redesign Microcredit? How Can We Better Design Models for Social Change?
Given the past year of controversies in microcredit and an opportunity to meet Dr. Muhammad Yunus at Change Model, a workshop focused on innovating development approaches, we asked Dr. Yunus how the sector could have been designed differently. His resolute response: "I would not let the profit-makers be part of the movement."
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- Technology
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- scale
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Wednesday
June 29
2011Fishing for Technical Assistance: How TA Investments at the Client Level Impact BoP Markets
Despite adding cost to business models, can technical assistance investments at the client level seed success and sustainability in the housing industry? Can TA to clients build capacity among BoP consumers, unlocking market potential beyond the initial transaction? Ashoka’s Housing for All initiative and the Hilti Foundation are betting yes.
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Tuesday
February 8
2011Incalculable Impact, Please?
When is impact legitimately ?incalculable?? Is a limited ability to wrap metrics around your impact ever acceptable or desirable? While we work on qualitative and quantitative ways to assess the resulting impact on lives at the BoP, it?s ultimately that incalculable kind of shift in ?business as usual? for which we all should take aim.
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Guest Articles
Monday
January 10
2011An Uncommon Gathering, For a Common Agenda: Affordable Housing at the BoP
In December, Ashoka in partnership with the Hilti Foundation brought, several other organizations tackling affordable housing in various geographies and with varying approaches in Barcelona for a Summit of Global Housing Entrepreneurs. The goal: to identify a common agenda to advance affordable housing for BoP populations globally.
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- housing