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Beyond Competition: An interview with Grameen Foundation’s Steve Wright
From a traditional business perspective, social enterprise seems to be built upon a contradiction. How can you run a company whose ultimate goal is to foster and empower competitors rather than defeat them? That’s one of the topics discussed by Steve Wright, vice president of Grameen Foundation’s Poverty Tools & Insights division, in this BoP Summit 2013 interview.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Weeding Out La Roya, the Scourge of Coffee : Behind Root Capital’s $7M initiative to build farmer resilience
Roya is a nightmare for coffee farming families, their communities and the entire region. Experts report massive economic disruption, including the loss of 500,000 coffee-related jobs and approximately $1 billion in lost revenue.The $7 million initiative will allow Root Capital to lend more than $10 million for resilience investments, and provide financial management training, to 50 agricultural enterprises representing 40,000 farmers.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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‘I Don’t Wish I Had AIDS’: If only diabetics worldwide could feel the same way
In a 2012 study, diabetic patients were consistently heard "wishing they had AIDS." That’s because, in many parts of the world, diabetes is a death sentence. However, with greater access to information and affordable care, it doesn’t have to be.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- public health
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Knowing the Customer (Whether You’re a Social Startup or Ford): At the UM India Business Conference
At the UM India Business Conference Mark Fields, chief operating officer of Ford Motor Co., and Desh Deshpande is an Indian American venture capitalist and entrepreneur, discussed the intricacies of reaching new customers in emerging markets whether it’s a multinational company or a social enterprise.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Directed Remittances: Are “free” in-kind transfers exciting enough to lure customers?
Remittances from migrant communities have huge social and economic impacts on emerging markets, accounting for over a third of GDP in some countries. But the market has only experienced incremental levels of innovation over the years. Now, according to Nate Gonzalez at Accion Venture Lab, more nuanced business models are emerging, including some that offer in-kind transfers like gift vouchers or bill payments rather than cash.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Expanding the Platform: What’s holding back Kenya’s mobile money ecosystem – and how to improve it
Kenya leads the world in mobile money, but the wildly successful M-Pesa platform is still used mainly for remittances. For the country to realize its mobile finance potential, it must develop a much broader range of payment use cases, says Jake Kendall. He challenged a team of researchers to identify the country’s mobile finance challenges and to come up with solutions - here’s what they found.
- Categories
- Education
- Tags
- mobile finance, research
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India’s No. 1 problem is No. 2.: Tansa Clean tests ‘biodigester’ technology to improve sanitation
Some $54 billion is lost from the Indian economy from health costs, lowered productivity, and absent tourism revenues, all of which originates in diarrhea. Anaerobic biodigesters are airtight tanks that create just the right environment for bacteria to become active, breaking organic wastes down into methane-rich biogas and a nutrient-rich slurry. The founders of Tansa Clean, are launching a pilot to test the potential of their biodigester in India.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Beauty as Business: Research on women entrepreneurs in India
Women’s World Banking conducted market research in North and South India to support the expansion of an individual lending program. Their goal was to understand the financial needs of micro-entrepreneurs and identify how individual loans could help them reach their business goals. In this post, they discuss the findings from one particularly promising business sector: beauty parlors.
- Categories
- Education
