Friday Roundup ? 2/18/11: A Special Offer for NB Readers from SOCAP/Europe

NextBillion is a proud media partner for SOCAP/Europe, and this week Kevin Jones, a principal at Good Capital and co-founder of SOCAP, lets us know about a special early bird registration available for the NextBillion Network (AKA: You).

Click here to register and to take advantage of this great opportunity to join the first-ever SOCAP/Europe, set for May 30-June 1 at Amsterdam’s historic Beurs van Berlage, considered the world’s first stock exchange.

The program is still taking shape, but Jones notes that organizers are working hard to “bring some of the most innovative funding models, case studies in collaborative partnership, and piercing new ideas in social enterprise to the forefront and are delighted with the overwhelming response.” SOCAP/Europe will kick off with an opening night reception followed by two days of deep-dive sessions with pioneering organizations such as Triodos Bank, Doen Foundation, Voxtra, Root Capital, Unltd, Blue Orchard Finance, Kiva.org, and OPIC, Jones said.

We’ll be bringing more updates on SOCAP/Europe as they develop.

Worth your time …

Last week, Trickle Up, a non-profit that provides seed grants of $100 and business training to aspiring microentrepreneurs worldwide, hosted a very interesting conversation on “Two Indias: Poverty Amdist Plenty.” It explored the challenges India faces in managing soaring economic growth in the face of sustained poverty for the 800 million people earning $2 a day or less, and the socioeconomic and political issues that are evolving day to day. The panel discussion included Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, who focuses on the Middle East and South Asia; Mitra Kalita, a senior writer at The Wall Street Journal and author of My Two Indias: A journey to the Ends of Opportunity; and Jui Gupta, Trickle UP’s Asia regional representative. You can listen to a podcast of the program here.

Incidentally, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck targeted Trickle Up this week as a “leftist” charity because it counts Google among its donors. (Beck has taken umbrage to Google in recent days). Trickle Up President Bill Abrams has a video response here.

Acumen Fund CEO Jaqueline Novogratz released her Winter 2011 Letter, which provided numerous upbeat updates on Acumen investments in India, Uganda and West Africa, as well as the announcement of a new India country director.

A Friendly Reminder

Starting Monday, we’ll begin a series called Advancing Healthcare With the BoP. We’re pretty excited on how the project is coming together and we hope it provides tangible, scalable, fundable and flexible examples of healthcare delivery to admire and emulate. Here’s the announcement and don’t forget to mark you calendars for a live Twitter chat with Ashoka and NextBillion on healthcare delivery at the BoP, set for 3-5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 23 under the hashtag #socentchat.

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