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Weekly Roundup – The Indispensable Platform: The growing importance of mobile access to businesses that serve the poor
With over 50 percent of people in the developing world having access to a cell phone, mobile access has become an indispensable platform for businesses and services focused on the BoP. We discuss its impact and potential in this week’s Roundup.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education, Energy, Impact Assessment, Technology, Telecommunications
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8 Defining Milestones in India’s Social Enterprise Landscape
As India celebrates its 67th year of freedom on Thursday (Aug. 15), it seems poignant to pause and reflect on eight milestones that have played an important role in shaping India’s social enterprise landscape and the lessons they teach us.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Put Down the Champagne, Pick Up the Computer Mouse: For Solar Power To Reach Poor Consumers, the Focus Must Be On Results
The 2013 World Economic Forum in Davos launched with the theme "Resilient Dynamism." Although I have never attended Davos, the international gathering of dignitaries did remind me somewhat of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) conference, ‘Sustainable Energy Strategies in Low and Middle-Income Economies,’ in November. Is there a better way to support BoP businesses? The answer is yes.
- Categories
- Energy
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Working at the ‘Coalface’ of Clean Energy: BCtA forum gathers renewal power players
The webinar was a collaborative effort between BCtA, the Business Innovation Facility (BIF) and the Innovations Against Poverty, and resulted in a rich and thought-provoking discussion, covering perennial issues ranging from marketing to the BoP to distribution challenges.
- Categories
- Energy
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NextThought Monday – An Alternative to Alternative Energy: Will microfinance embrace biogas for the BoP?
Solar was once the wild west of alternative energy. Today, microfinance banks see it as a solid investment, even for poor clients, and bio-gas may follow its footsteps.
- Tags
- microfinance, solar
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NextThought Monday: Barefoot Power looks to reduce the cost of living off-grid in India
Founded in 2005, Barefoot Power has created affordable lighting and phone charging products tailored for low-income markets – including 20 developing countries across Africa, America and, more recently, China. To ensure that Barefoot Power can rapidly expand within the focus states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh by mid-2013 and make safe and affordable energy options more accessible, the company is focused on a two-pronged distribution approach.
- Categories
- Energy
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EcoZoom on Building a Market for Clean Cookstoves: What it takes for consumers to invest for long-term savings
Global Envision interviewed Chief of Operations Phil Ferranto on the challenges EcoZoom faces in convincing people to invest in clean cookstoves, developing a market for cookstoves in developing economies, and what sets EcoZoom apart as a socially-minded for-profit business.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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A Market for Preservation: Tropical-forest friendly products, entrepreneurship and consumer choice
CleanStar Energy, is social enterprise that focuses on bringing sustainable bioenergy solutions into developing markets while preserving delicate tropical forest communities. It’s the type of business being sought by the Tropical Forest Challenge, which aims to identify the best for-profit solution – an idea, start up, or company with a positive impact on tropical forest biodiversity.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Transportation
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