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Essays Show Innovative Business Solutions for Low-Income Markets Continue to Evolve
The BoP Short Essay Competition organized by the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School at Cornell University attracted more than 100 submissions from 27 countries. While India is still a hotbed for BoP ventures, this year’s contest drew a diverse array of ideas and opportunities from many other parts of the world.
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- Impact Assessment
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A Kenyan Pedal Power Solution for Charging Mobile Phones
In rural Kenya, electricity sockets are hard to find but pedal power is everywhere, which is why inventor Pascal Katana has come up with an ingenious method to charge mobile phones using the energy generated by bicycles.
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- Environment, Technology
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OpenIDEO’s Latest Challenge Aims For Practical Results in Colombia
OpenIDEO’s most recent challenge asks the design community an important question: "How might we use social business to improve health in low-income communities?" It’s not an idle query. The question applies directly to Caldas, Colombia where the poverty rate is near 60 percent, with 26 percent extreme poverty and infant mortality at 12.5 percent.
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- Uncategorized
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After Two Years, ANDE Making an Impact for Small and Growing Businesses
ANDE’s 2010 Impact Report shows the increasing recognition of the importance of SGBs. In the first half of 2010, 22 investment funds launched with a primary focus on SGBs, while private equity funds doubled targets for SGB investments from 2009 to 2010, according to the report. The middle may no longer be "missing," but it is still hard to find.
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- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Karnani’s ’Fighting Poverty Together’ Advocates Eclectic Approaches
Aneel Karnani, perhaps one of the best-known skeptics of Base of the Pyramid approaches, corporate social responsibility and microcredit has a new book, Fighting Poverty Together. In it, Karnani levels familiar criticisms, but also provides many suggestions for how businesses, NGOs and governments should address poverty alleviation.
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- Education
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- academia
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Vouchers Are Putting Kenyan Women in Charge of Care
A collaboration of the Kenyan government, German development bank KfW, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers aims to reduce pregnancy-related deaths through incentives. The program offers vouchers to stimulate demand from low-income consumers to seek care for pregnancies and to reimburse high-quality healthcare suppliers for providing the contracted services.
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- Uncategorized
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Acumen Fund Launching East Africa Fellows Program
I just returned from Nairobi where I attended the selection conference for our first Regional Fellows Program in East Africa. The day was inspiring on so many levels, but most of all it was a reminder of the incredible pipeline of leaders in the region that are aching to learn, grow, connect, and create real change.
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- Education
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NexThought Monday: The Role of Social Businesses in Creating Employment
For a social business, the starting point is not the business itself. Its priority is to provide opportunities to and improve the quality of life of marginalized populations or individuals deprived of freedom and other groups who do not have access to the job market. All of these factors help to determine the type of employment that they create.
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- Uncategorized
