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Taking Inspiration from Innovation: Key Insights from Eight Entrepreneurs Making an Impact in Emerging Markets
Whether they're working to increase smallholder farmers’ profits, promote water or sanitation solutions, or address other key needs in emerging markets, social entrepreneurs tend to face common challenges. That's why they must learn from each other if they hope to flourish. Brigit Helms at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship shares insights from eight entrepreneurs in Miller Center’s Clean Water and Climate-Smart Agriculture program, who discuss their innovations, the challenges they’ve overcome and the lessons they’ve learned.
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- Agriculture, Social Enterprise, WASH
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Lessons in Resilience: What an Impact Investor Learned from an Entrepreneur Who Refused to Give Up
Entrepreneurship is a long game, and winning often comes down to grit. One case in point: Arindam Dasgupta, the co-founder and CEO of Tamul Plates, who has built a thriving business in India despite the historic challenges of recent years. Sachi Shenoy at Calidris and Steve Schwartz at the World Economic Forum were early investors in Tamul Plates through Upaya Social Ventures, the impact investing firm they co-founded. They discuss what Dasgupta has taught them about the qualities and practices investors should look for when seeking resilient entrepreneurs.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Just Useful… Or Truly Catalytic? How Entrepreneurs Really View Catalytic Capital — And What Impact Investors Can Do About It
Much of the attention in the impact finance sector tends to go to the stewards of capital — investors, foundations and other funders — most of whom firmly believe that catalytic capital is the type of finance that entrepreneurs value most. But as Bjoern Struewer at Roots of Impact and Jed Emerson at Tiedemann point out, it's unclear if investors' assumptions about the value of catalytic capital align with entrepreneurs’ actual opinions about it. They discuss new research that explores what entrepreneurs really value in this type of financing — and how these structures might be improved.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Announcing NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles of 2022: Vote for Your Favorite!
It's time for NextBillion's “Most Influential Article of the Year” contest, in which we select our 12 most-read articles from the past year and invite readers to choose their favorites. We welcome you to read the articles and to vote by scrolling down to the voting app at the bottom of this announcement — or at the individual articles in the contest, which are linked in this announcement and posted on our homepage. You can vote up to one time per hour during the voting period, which will run from Dec. 21 to Jan. 3. We wish you a happy holiday season and a prosperous new year!
- Categories
- Agriculture, Coronavirus, Energy, Environment, Finance, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Fewer ‘Heropreneurs,’ More Heroic Women: Grameen Foundation’s New CEO Discusses Her Vision for the Organization – And the Broader Financial Inclusion Sector
When Zubaida Bai was announced as the new CEO of Grameen Foundation last month, she says the news was often met with two reactions: “Wow, is Muhammed Yunus your hero, too?” and “Oh, Grameen Foundation — they do microfinance, right?” As Bai writes, these reactions highlighted some common misunderstandings about Yunus and Grameen Foundation — and about the real heroes behind anti-poverty work. She explores these misconceptions, and shares her vision for Grameen Foundation and the financial inclusion sector.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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Taking a Virtual Trip to the Last Mile: How an Innovative Program is Harnessing Virtual Reality to Advance Progress Toward the SDGs
Boosted by growing internet access and fueled by the pandemic, the virtual reality (VR) market has become the fastest-growing media segment, projected to reach US $185 billion by 2026. According to Julia Winterflood at Kopernik, the immersive nature of VR makes it uniquely suited to raising awareness of social challenges, and the technology is finding applications in the global development sector. She explores how Kopernik is leveraging virtual reality videos to document challenges faced by underserved communities and accelerate progress toward the SDGs.
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- Social Enterprise, Technology, Telecommunications
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A $500 Billion+ Market Opportunity for Real Impact: Three Ways Corporations Can Engage in Social Procurement
Social procurement – the practice of corporations buying products or services from social businesses – has gained substantial momentum in recent years. According to a report released earlier this year, the overall market volume of social procurement currently exceeds $2.5 billion, and it could reach $506 billion over the next decade. Jo Bautista at Yunus Social Business explores how corporations can get involved in social procurement, sharing three ways they can integrate social businesses into their value chains.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Overcoming the Limitations of Donations: An English Education Nonprofit in India Transitions to Social Enterprise
Access to quality English language instruction has become a key to upward mobility in the developing world. But as Andrew Spearing and Nilabh Agrawal at Instilt Educate point out, for nonprofits in the English education space that are looking to rapidly scale, the donation-only model is a non-starter. They discuss the limitations of the nonprofit revenue model, and explore how Instilt Educate has navigated the challenges it has encountered in launching a paid element to complement its usual donation-based fundraising.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise