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Portfolios of the Poor: How the Poor Live on Less Than $2 a Day
The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) - a consortium of development economists funded by the Gates Foundation - is at the forefront when it comes to financial research for base of the pyramid markets. I have long admired the work of Jonathan Morduch and Sendhil Mullainathan, two of FAI’s directors.
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New Ventures Takes Off in Colombia: Laying the First Bricks of an “Ecosystem”
This year (actually next week!) will see the first gathering around WRI’s promotion of sustainable entrepreneurship in Colombia through its New Ventures initiative. Organized in partnership with Universidad de los Andes, this first forum is only the first step of what we hope will become a vibrant community of support for entrepreneurs locally.
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Moving Beyond Case Studies: Randomized Experiments
As the BoP field becomes increasingly established, BoP entrepreneurs and organizations need to be seen as legitimate vehicles in the fight against poverty. If the BoP community wants to be perceived as a member of equal status in the development arena we need to go beyond case studies. The next level may involve using randomized experiments.
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Nominate (or apply to be) a 2009 Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow
You know you want to be a Pop!Tech Fellow. Or you know someone who will want to be.Either way, now’s the time to act. The 2008 Fellows were a great bunch - including base-of-the-pyramid innovators like Husk Power Systems, Por Fin Nuestra Casa, Mobile Metrix, Ushahidi.com and more. Think you have what it takes to join this select company?
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Is the Green-Base of the Pyramid Nexus Kicking In?
A couple of months ago, I suggested that the new trend in the development through enterprise space would be a growing interest in the cross-implications of poverty and the effects of climate change in the developing world. I’ve recently come across a couple of events that signal this could actually be happening.
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- Education
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Video Interview: C.K. Prahalad on Development Through Enterprise
C.K. Prahalad - the base-of-the-pyramid thought leader - recently sat down for a videotaped interview with the World Resources Institute. In the interview, Professor Prahalad discusses the future of sustainable, private sector-led poverty alleviation.
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Will the next “thought leader” please stand up? – Part 2
Thought leadership is recognition from the outside world that a company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates. Thought leadership is built on what others say about you. When you have it, companies look to you for insight & vision, journalists quote you, analysts call you.
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Will the next “thought leader” please stand up? – Part 1
Four years ago, Nicholas Negroponte announced the One Laptop per Child initiative and the $100 laptop to much fan-fare at Davos in Switzerland. He captured the imaginations of world leaders with promises of ultra-affordable computing for school children around the world. He talked about changing the way children learn, improving their education ...
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