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Where Free, Profitable, Impact and Scale Intersect: Insights From the Story of Aravind
Aravind Eye Care is a self-sustaining and profitable organization that treats most of its patients for free or at a deeply subsidized rate. A new book, "Infinite Vision," provides insights into the man who put Aravind into motion, and chronicles the strategic decisions, growing pains, innovations and efficiencies behind this BoP success story.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Weekly Roundup – 11-13-11: Technology’s Equalizing Impact
The need for inclusive health programs has been an active part of the development conversation for years. Daniella Ballou-Aares, the founder of the Global Health Practice group at the strategic consulting firm Dalberg points out, the means to do so on a large-scale has been elusive. However, technology has become the great equalizer.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Housing Series: Sustainable Communities Generating Sustainable Habitats
We began Echale a Tu Casa over 25 years ago as a nonprofit to help low-income Mexican families improve home safety, health and hygiene conditions. Realizing that philanthropy would not permit us to have much of an impact on these living conditions, we created a social enterprise built on an integrated system of savings, credit and subsidies.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care, WASH
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NextThought Monday: When Mass Marketing Meets Global Health, the Case of Lifebuoy Soap
While the UN continues to fall well short of its Millennium Development Goals and aid agencies pour ever-more money into hygiene aid programs, Lifebuoy is taking a very different approach. The Unilever brand recently launched an effort to globalize its hand washing campaign, marketing its way towards the one billion benchmark.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Creating Demand With Social Marketing: ColaLife’s Approach
Too often ventures forget they need endeavor to create demand for the products they offer in BoP markets. ColaLife is a rare example, as it thought this through this early in the design phase. Fitting into the unused spaced between crated bottles, ColaLife’s "AidPods" contain Anti-Diarrhea Kits (ADKs) for home use by mothers and caregivers.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Finding Value in Waste
As the number one exporter of Brazil nuts, Bolivia cultivates approximately 20,000 tons a year. Only 0.8 percent of the Brazil nuts are exported with their shell; the rest are cracked and their nutshells are discarded as waste. But the founders of PelletBol, developed a method to compress the Brazil nutshells into pellets as a source of biofuel.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Targeting the Urban Ultra Poor: Taking The Road Less Travelled
India’s urban population has surged from 78.9 million in 1961 to 286 million in 2001, and could double in another 25 years. To help those urban poor that are left out of microfinance programs, Kriti Social Initiatives decided it was essential for the pilot to include program components addressing livelihoods and healthcare.
- Categories
- Health Care
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SOCAP11: Waste Management that Works
Parag Gupta, founder and CEO of Waste Ventures recently told me that urban India produces a mound of garbage that weighs twice as much as the Empire State Building every week. In that big pile of trash, Gupta and his team identified a glowing opportunity for economic, social, and environmental impact.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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