Rob Katz

Back from the BRINQ

Patrick Donohue IndiaIf you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be doing base of the pyramid work on the ground, you should talk to NextBillion friend and ally Patrick Donohue.? Patrick got his start in the BOP universe as a MBA student of Stuart Hart’s, back when Stu was running the Center for Sustainable Enterprise out of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School.? Since graduation, Patrick has worked with the William Davidson Institute (of the University of Michigan) on their Base of the Pyramid work and is an active participant in the BOP Protocol process.? In short–he’s part of the who’s who of the Base of the Pyramid universe.

Naturally, Patrick is a blogger and a photographer.? Sadly, his BRINQ blog and photostream had been quiet for many months–until last week.? Evidently Patrick’s been too busy with his work in Brazil and India to write it up and document with pictures, but he’s caught up in style.? I strongly recommend his latest post, Belated Postcards from India and Brazil, to hear first-hand what it’s like to work with multinational corporations, NGOs, universities, and others to put the BOP strategy to work.? An excerpt:

In April, my colleague Erik Simanis (of Cornell) and I headed out to India to guide the Solae Company in its implementation of the Base of the Pyramid Protocol. The initiative is being run by Enterprise for a Sustainable World (for whom I?m a senior consultant) and Cornell University’s SGE (with Stu Hart, Duncan Duke, et al.) The project is in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India and we are conducting implementations of the Protocol in two different sites, the Indiramma Nagar slums of Hyderabad and in villages in the Parvathagiri mandal of Warangal District.

Read more, and be sure to subscribe to Patrick’s RSS feed while you?re over at BRINQ.? Welcome back, Patrick–and thanks for the postcards!

Categories
Uncategorized