Partners in Food Solutions (PFS), a nonprofit organization founded by General Mills, is adding a fourth partner, Switzerland-based Bühler, to its consortium of world-class food companies working together to link the technical and business expertise of employee volunteers to small and growing food processors and millers in the developing world. Bühler joins Minneapolis-based General Mills and Cargill, and Royal DSM of the Netherlands as a PFS corporate partner.

Twitter and Facebook are valuable tools for social enterprises – but there are a number of pitfalls you should avoid

You may have heard of multinational corporations, such as Unilever, seeking to target the so-called ‘bottom of the pyramid’, providing goods and services to the $5 trillion marketcomprising the poorest 4 billion people in the world. But there are also small business owners from that segment of society targeting that market.

M-Pesa, the mobile-based money transfer and payment service that has been highly successful in Kenya since its launch in 2007, is now available in India by Vodafone, working through its fully-owned subsidiary Mobile Commerce Solutions Ltd (MCSL), and ICICI bank, the country’s largest private sector bank.

NYU’s most promising innovators received a combined $200,000 in startup cash at the annual $200K Entrepreneurs Challenge held by NYU Stern’s Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.

A proposed system uses mirrors to increase the power of a solar panel and pump water to crops.

Popular social petition service Change.org has raised $15 million in new funding — cash that will help it further build up the “world’s largest petition platform.”

The new launches in the affordable category could just be another marketing gimmick to push sales and mop up money

Socially responsible investing has long been associated with avoiding companies in "vice businesses" like alcohol, tobacco and weapons.

Leading global health experts told Capitol Hill lawmakers today that the fight against malaria is at a turning point, during a hearing on the US’ role in combating malaria globally.

Socially responsible investing has long been associated with avoiding companies in "vice businesses" like alcohol, tobacco and weapons.

In the travel industry, the bottom of the pyramid is the driver.” Ram Badrinathan, Founder & CEO, GlobalTHEN.

It is a striking feature of the growing startup ecosystems in the Middle East that the lines between “entrepreneurship” and “social entrepreneurship” — that is, entrepreneurship that makes a social impact — often blur.

After nearly 25 years of work involving multi-institution, multi-country collaboration, India yesterday announced its first locally developed anti-diarrhoea vaccine.

I normally hate to be critical of specific charities, but I’m going to make an exception because I’ve just found one of the worst charities in the world.

In working to turn her Brazilian bank into a financial resource for micro-entrepreneurs, Aparecida Teixeira de Morais has learned valuable lessons about changing a company from the inside.

The promise of delinking research and development from the actual manufacture of drugs, and why the pharmaceutical industry rejects an idea that could turn neglected diseases into profit

Strategies for putting money to work in a fast-growing continent.

Acumen, a pioneering non-profit global venture firm addressing poverty across Africa and in South Asia, on Monday announced its first investment in the growing rural energy sector of Pakistan.

The epic inside story of long-term criminal fraud at Ranbaxy, the Indian drug company that makes generic Lipitor for millions of Americans.

A virus similar to SARS has spread through hospitals in Europe and the Middle East, prompting fears of human-to-human transmission.

They’re funny things, speaker tours. On the face of it, you go from venue to venue, churning out the same presentation – more wonk-n-roll than rock-n-roll. But you are also testing your arguments, adding slides where there are holes, deleting ones that don’t work.

The Rockefeller Foundation has announced that it will pledge $97 million to create jobs in the digital field in Africa as part of its ongoing initiative to create jobs for young Africans in the rapidly growing information and communications technology (ICT) enabled sectors in the continent.

You may never have considered how online shopping for cane toads could have a positive social impact.

Last month, the U.S. government stood on the sidelines as much of the world united for the final push to eradicate polio. Now, Congress has a chance to put us back on track.

Defying illiteracy, 420 women floriculturists from Kotha Reddypalem and Patha Reddypalem villages in Machilipatnam have proved that they can be successful entrepreneurs

More than 100 projects spanning the globe — including a number from South-East Asia — will share CAN$10.9 million (US$10.7 million) worth of funding from the Canadian government to pursue novel and cost-effective innovations in disease treatment.

Scientists have developed a global media surveillance system that enables them to look for, and systematically monitor, up-to-the-minute public concerns and rumors about vaccines originating from 144 countries.

An initiative allowing the provenance of medicines to be verified using mobile technology is taking aim at the illegal drug trade.

Although global economic recovery still remains fragile and the road back to normalcy is a long and difficult one, the fortunes of India’s pharmaceutical industry remain upbeat.

Social enterprise first evolved in the developing world. Now the business models and social metrics may be going mainstream.

The Venture Capital Trust Fund will invest US$20million in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in different sectors of the economy this year, building on a portfolio of investments currently valued at close to US$60million.

Dr John Coors, fourth-gen chief executive of ceramics company CoorsTek and a member of the Coors brewing dynasty, is behind the launch of an investment group targeting Africa that plans a new approach to investing in the continent.

The traditional approach to solving Africa’s problems has been to rely on charity and aid – free money, more or less. And while charity has done much good for millions across the continent in terms of food security, health care, emergency response, and education, its chief weakness is that its results have not proven sustainable. Africa finds itself continually going back to donors simply to maintain the status quo. What the continent really needs is to create the environment – political, economic, and social – to achieve self-sufficiency.

Is it taking advantage of poor people to try to make money from them? And do they even have any money to give?

Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF) signed a Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with the Ghana Institute for Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) to establish a Centre for Impact Investing in the country.

The two companies that make vaccines against cervical cancer announced Thursday that they would cut their prices to the world’s poorest countries below $5 per dose.

Eighty percent of the 13 million Malawians live in rural areas, making delivering health services challenging, especially in remote parts with no roads.

Growing rural demand is making Godrej Appliances target consumers at the bottom of the pyramid with new products pegged below Rs 3,000.

In order to avoid excesses that derailed the Indian microfinance industry three years ago, nine entities doing 'impact investing' have come together.

In the United States, private school is generally a privilege of the rich. But in poorer nations, particularly in Africa and South Asia, families of all social classes send their children to private school.

In the early 2000s, pharmaceutical companies were high on activists’ hit lists. Today, the discourse seems merrier.

S. Ramadorai took over the post from M.V. Subbiah, who was heading NSDC since 2008.

The future of Afghanistan begins at the end of next year, after U.S. combat troops depart and Afghan forces take over for keeps.

Monitoring and reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and poor-quality human medicines has gone digital in Kenya.

Microlending has lost a lot of its shine in the seven years since Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for delivering small loans to help poor women start businesses.

The next time you are standing at a bus stop, cursing the late-running service, spare a thought for Milind Dahikar.

Accion announced the first five investments by Venture Lab, its $10 million seed capital initiative, which invests in start-up companies that help expand global financial inclusion. A pioneer and leader in bringing financial services to the underserved, Accion launched Venture Lab in April, 2012.

In 1888, when Queen Victoria ruled India, the company that would become Unilever (UNA) decided the country was the future. More than a century on, it’s staking $5.4 billion that it still is. The Anglo-Dutch maker of Dove shampoo and Lipton tea, successor to one of the first multinationals in India, plans to spend as much as 292 billion rupees ($5.4 billion) to increase its control over Indian unit Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (HUVR)

There are many different ways – organisationally speaking – that you can save the world.

Living Goods, a social enterprise based in San Francisco, has built a network of door-to-door salespeople in Uganda.

Toxic waste sites in India with elevated levels of lead and chromium are causing disease, disability and even death, leading to loss of healthy years of life among people, according to a new research.

Investing in a social enterprise in India has become quite the in-thing and the definition of who is a social entrepreneur seems to be changing as well.

Access to financial services could pull millions of people out of poverty, so where does microfinance fit in?

Kenyan island aims to become free of the disease thanks to solar-powered, insecticide-free mosquito traps

When we try to scale social enterprise, we usually try one of two paths: growing small organizations or spreading ideas across a range of organizations to scale impact.

Chandra Duggirala, maker of an experimental device for type two diabetes, is on the verge of giving up.

Twenty social enterprises were awarded grants totaling $2 million by the India Development Marketplace (DM) funded by the World Bank Group (WBG).

A Ziploc bag filled with $5 worth of tools to save newborn babies’ lives in third world countries.

In Asia, more than 120 people have been sickened, and 23 are dead, from a potent strain of bird flu that has the frightening markings of a potential pandemic strain.

Alpesh Patel, a Ugandan-born entrepreneur, served as director of sales in Africa for Motorola before quitting the American telecommunications giant to launch Mi-Fone, an African mobile phone brand.

As the first Internet stock bubble neared its popping point in 1999, IBM chief executive Lou Gerstner famously dismissed the dot-com start-ups of his day as "fireflies before the storm--all stirred up, throwing off sparks."

Forbes interviewed Amit Bouri, the managing director at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of impact investing around the world.

Business students from around the globe entered the Global Business School Network’s 3rd annual MBA+ Challenge Video Contest to show how they are making a difference in the developing world.

As of March 2013, Omidyar Network has committed more than $611 million to for-profit and non-profit companies that foster economic advancement, including entrepreneurship.

Tracking malaria resistance is imperative if it is to be prevented, say scientists who have been genotyping the parasites.

For parents in Somalia, giving their children immunizations is not a choice.

Assured Labor, a New York, Mexico City and São Paulo-based startup that helps low- and middle-income workers across Latin America find jobs through their mobile phones, just closed $5.5 million in funding led by Mexican private equity firm Capital Indigo.

An all-star team--including Twitter, a former Apple marketing executive, the people who ran Obama’s online campaign, drug companies, and more--are coming together with Malaria No More to make a huge push to stop one of the most deadly diseases in the world.