NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Are you in Europe or want to go there in the upcoming months? Are you excited about development through enterprise topics and want to meet like-minded people? If you answered “yes” to both then you should make sure to keep an eye out for some promising events coming up this fall in Europe.

In Antropia, Driebergen, The Netherlands, the Dutch BOP Innovation Center will host its kick-off event on October 6. Stuart Hart is announced as keynote speaker and participants are invited to participate in one out of four workshops covering inclusive business, social embeddedness, scaling, and finance for the BoP. For the invite to the event and to register have a look at the BOP Innovation Center website.

Luxembourg will be the venue for this year’s annual conference of the European Venture Philanthropy Association on November 16 and 17. Sir Ronald Cohen, a founder of the private-equity industry in Europe and chairman of Bridges Ventures, will be joined by Acumen Fund’s Jacqueline Novogratz and Percy Barnevik of Hand in Hand as keynote speakers. Metrics, investment strategies, and issues involved in building scale are among the topics to be covered. You find more details in the conference program and on the conference website.

In Germany, Berlin will be worth a trip for a number of events. If you consider yourself an idealist or want to meet people of that breed, make sure to attend the Utopia conference that will take place on October 28 and 29. With the headline “Relaunch 2010: Alles bleibt anders” (Relaunch 2010: Everything stays different), sessions will focus on green economy, politics, environment and activism through a mixture of panels and workshops.

On November 6, the Entrepreneurship Summit 2010 will be hosted by the FU Berlin and focus on Entrepreneurial Design providing food for thought on issues, such as design thinking as well as social, ecological and cultural entrepreneurship.

For December you should mark days 1 and 2. GTZ, Emergia Institute and Micro Energy International among others invite practitioners from the energy and finance industry to participate in the workshop “Energize the BoP – Energy business models for low-income markets”. If you can’t make it to the workshop itself, you will have the chance to attend the public panel on the first evening to discuss opportunities and challenges for inclusive business in the energy sector.

Last but not least, London is another hot spot to become engaged at a variety of events. If you are a morning person, the monthly social investor breakfasts organized by Marmanie, ANDE’s European representative, might be worth looking into. Upcoming topics include Impact Investing in Africa and Impact Investing in India.

If you prefer evenings, try to make it out to a NetImpact event on October 12. Ben Powell, founder of Agora Venture Fund, will discuss business-based approaches to achieve social impact with Mark Cheng, Director of Social Finance at Ashoka.

If you would like to dive deeper into the topic of impact investing, make sure to participate in the Impact Investing Forum 2010 that will take place November 30 – December 1. The speaker list reads like the Who is Who of the impact investing space. Kicking off with a series of pre-conference workshops on November 29, the conference itself will cover a wide array of topics, including the “why”, “what” and “how” of impact investing. Prior to the conference, NextBillion will make sure to give you some more insight on what to expect and of course provide coverage of the conference itself. For the complete program and registration details have a look at the conference website.

If you know of any further events in the development through enterprise space taking place in Europe, please post a comment!

Hope to see you at one of those events – Tot ziens, à bientôt, bis bald, cheers!