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Weekly Round-up 11-6-11: Welcoming Two New Voices to NextBillion
I’d like to formally welcome two new writers to the NextBillion community. I use the term formally only because Andrew Eder and Logan Yonavjak have already contributed several in-depth posts to the site on subjects ranging from promoting agricultural business innovation in Zimbabwe to the urgency of environmentally sustainable investing.
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Housing Series: Shelter After Disaster – Temporary Aid Or Pathway to a Better Future?
Over the past years the global humanitarian community has been working to develop solutions that offer disaster and conflict-affected families a more durable shelter than the tents traditionally provided. "Transitional shelter, " guides families on a pathway to durable shelter solutions, a process to choose from multiple options for their future.
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- housing
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From Occupy Wall St. to Impact Investing, 2 Visions of Markets at Net Impact 2011
As the Occupy Wall Street protesters continued their encampment in Portland near the Net Impact 2011 venue last weekend, it became difficult to reconcile two visions of international markets. Still, speakers posited that concepts of global development and markets were merging fast, and offered the best solution to reducing economic inequality.
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- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Housing Series: The Power of Collecting Accurate Data
Many companies applying market surveys for middle/upper income consumers to the BoP market have failed. We employed slum residents and community workers to get honest answers, and to use cell phones and tablets to gather and send data for analysis. The result: specific guidance for architects and developers on target markets and ideal customers.
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- Technology
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Unpacking, Processing and Applying Revelations from PopTech 2011
Since PopTech’s conclusion I have been experiencing what I have come to term PopTech Paralysis, or, the shut down of cognitive thought, from an imbalance between new ideas and mental processing power. In the last week my addled brain processed my first attendance of the "idea factory" and started to apply it to my experience at the BoP.
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- product design
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Housing Series: From the Field, Reflections From Two Dow Corning Leaders on Building a BoP Market
Dow Corning’s Citizen Service Corps sends employees around the world to see, hear and think about what new markets need, and come back ready to translate those insights into innovations and new products. The posts below are excerpts from two employees who worked on Housing for All in India as their volunteer experience.
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Aligning Money with Values
At this month’s Columbia Social Enterprise Conference panel on Impact Investors Spreading Social Innovation, Charly and Lisa Kleissner of KL Felicitas Foundation shared their journey in merging personal values with wealth management. The Kleissners immediately radiated the boldness and entrepreneurial charisma of Silicon Valley.
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- impact investing
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Housing Series: Why Dow Corning Sends Employees to Serve BoP Projects around the World
What would happen if major global companies sent their employees to work with people in emerging economies for weeks at a time to get to know their cultures, needs and daily patterns of life? Not as "poverty tourism," but rather part of a strategy to see all that is happening and and then to think how that translates to product innovations.
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