-
Uncorking Bottled Light: A Study In Energy Access, Acceptance: A pilot project is testing solar ‘bottle’ lamps to curb illegal energy usage
Traditionally, slum dwellings are dark, one-room structures with no window or passage through which sunlight can enter. As a consequence, slum residents end up using illegal electricity lines to power light bulbs in their homes. In Dhaka, this illegal consumption amounts to approximately 275MW of electricity per year. Sajid Iqbal, a budding entrepreneur and environmental science and management student, sees a market opportunity.
- Categories
- Energy
-
Advancing Impact Investing Platforms… Promise and Peril!: We can’t always assume all investment strategies must scale
Impact Investing is not a single hammer looking for all the nails in the world—it is a diverse and dynamic approach to creating innovative applications of capital in appropriate ways to maximize potential impact. While the promise of investment platforms is, uh, promising, it is important we not start our discussion with the assumption that all investment strategies must scale!
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Tags
- impact investing, scale
-
Testing Assumptions About Women and Technology
Many at LifeSpring, including outreach workers themselves, agree that the hospital could benefit from digitally collecting information about its clients. But nobody was very excited about trying it. The reason: Most existing mobile health (mhealth) solutions are built on SMS (short message services, or simply text message) platforms, and LifeSpring was not confident about its outreach workers’ ability to use text messaging – or even about their ability to navigate and comprehend a text-based data collection system.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
-
The BIG Smallholder Opportunity: ‘Growing Business with Smallholders’ practitioner workshop is Nov. 19-20 in Germany
It’s clear that smallholders are important partners for improving food security when considering that, with 500 million farms worldwide, they cultivate most of the land in developing countries. To achieve food security, effective mechanisms to equip smallholders with the right inputs and tools.
- Categories
- Agriculture
-
The People Want Business with a Purpose (Will Social Intrapreneurs Deliver?): Ashoka and Accenture are looking for changemakers inside large multinationals
Ashoka and Accenture have teamed up to launch a new competition that seeks creative fixes for business and society: “The League of Intrapreneurs: Building Better Business from the Inside Out.”
- Categories
- Education
-
Voices from ANDE 2012: Building a Stronger Ecosystem
At the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs Conference last month, a good deal of focus was placed on developing the ecosystem to help social entrepreneurs connect with investors, business infrastructure and one another. One ANDE session took a close look at early stage incubation services, and the role they play in helping small and growing businesses, helping them to shape their business models along the way. Afterwards, I had a chance to meet with three leaders in this arena who are focused on social business development in India and Southeast Asia.
- Categories
- Investing
-
Why Should Banks Reach Out to Social Entrepreneurs? : That question will be front and center at the world’s largest banking conference
On Oct. 30, in Osaka, 8,000 bankers will convene for the world’s largest banking conference, SIBOS, and for the first time enter into a dialogue with social entrepreneurs about the future of their industry – based on concrete ideas for new business with social impact.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
-
The Dashboard Shift: A New Way to Present Data, Impact: Several new dashboards are blending data and storytelling in new ways
Data from which nothing is learned is wasted. At SOCAP 2011, Steve Wright, director of Social Performance Management at Grameen Foundation, shared his “8 rules of (social) enterprise efficacy measurement.” One of these rules is: metrics should be made public to encourage cooperation, alignment and emergence. In recent months, several dashboards have emerged as a popular way to share metrics.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Technology
