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NexThought Monday: Strategies for Doing Business in Emerging, Diverse Rural India
Only12 percent of India’s population lives in cities, the remaining 88 percent of people are not reaping many of the economic benefits from the country’s evolving leadership status and associate growth. Rural poverty remains rampant; as a result, innovative thinking is required to meet the needs of India’s majority.
I spoke with Pradeep Kashyap, the CEO and Founder of MART, one of India’s leading emerging markets consulting firm, about the opportunities and challenges of creating innovations for rural Indian markets- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Weekly Roundup 3/6/13: Getting ready for Sankalp 2013
By linking up with Villgro’s UnConvention, Intellecap’s Sankalp Forum later this month is the largest conference of its kind in India, and perhaps anywhere else in Asia.
Considering the rapid scale up of the conference, I wanted to find out what Sankalp would like like in 2013. For more I spoke with Sankalp Forum Director Aparajita Agrawal. The theme of this year’s summit is ‘Looking Beyond Impact: Seeking Transformational Change’.- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Want Healthier Food? Pay Farmers to Manage Nutrient Flows: The movement toward “ecosystem services” compensation
Farmers have traditionally made their money by producing food. But the growing awareness of the relationship between healthy ecosystems and healthy foods is leading some to consider other forms of compensation. Farmers may be paid to control water flow or sequester carbon dioxide on their property, for example. As part of their Nutrients for All campaign, Ashoka Changemakers explores some of these emerging compensation approaches.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Health Care
- Tags
- nutrition, public health
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Cases That Inspire Social Innovation
These success stories and the many others have helped fuel a growing interest in social entrepreneurship, particularly among students. I witnessed this strong interest first hand when I was a student at Harvard Business School (HBS). The Social Enterprise Club, which had started as a scrappy group with a handful of members, grew to be one of largest student clubs on campus, and the student-run Social Enterprise Conference attracted over 1,200 attendees each year.
- Categories
- Education
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Saving Lives Efficiently: A new study measures the impact of community health workers
Discussion of global health efforts often focuses on the newest medicine or latest advanced device. But a new study by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found impressive results in an approach that’s been around for decades: community health workers. By employing local community members to provide access to basic health care, community health worker programs play an important role in countries with a shortage of doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
- Categories
- Education, Health Care
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- public health, research
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Subscribing to Better Health: How Sevamob’s model helps patients – and its bottom line
When people think of innovative business models in BoP health care, they often think of delivery or supply chain innovations. But there’s also a wealth of experimentation on the health financing side, involving everything from micro-insurance to subscription fees. Sevamob, an Indian social enterprise, uses a subscription model. In this Q&A, Shelley Saxena, Sevamob’s founder, discusses the advantages and challenges of this approach.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- public health
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Learning from the Pioneers: Marketing innovative devices for the BoP
Over the last two decades, a range of affordable devices and equipment have been created to provide 4 billion people at the base of the pyramid (BoP) with life-changing benefits. Yet, progress in marketing these devices has been frustratingly slow as marketers struggle to convince BoP families that future benefits (cost savings or increased income) justify their investments. The “Marketing Innovative Devices for the Base of the Pyramid” project analyzed 15 pioneer organizations selling life-changing devices to low-income people around the world.
- Categories
- Education
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A Curious Landscape: Visualizing data on the India Map of Financial Inclusion
Which districts have the highest concentration of financial inclusion actors? How does the coverage of these services correlate with the basic demography and infrastructure across a given country? The MIX’s India Map of Financial Inclusion has answers, but also presents more questions for financial inclusion researchers and enterprises.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment, Technology
- Tags
- microfinance, research
