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The Birth of the Microfinance Fund
Next year microfinance celebrates its 30th birthday (Of course, that depends on who you ask). Beginning when Dr. Muhammad Yunus, an American trained economist from Bangladesh, experimented by lending money to 42 women so that they could buy bamboo for making and selling stools, microfinance...
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Oasis or Mirage?
Many of you have noticed that Professor Aneel Karnani’s post, Mirage at the Bottom of the Pyramid, has remained at the top of NextBillion.net’s home page for the last 48 hours or so. This is no technical glitch - the moderators made an editorial decision to let it stick there for a day...
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Using Business to Fight Malaria
Over a month ago, we covered a New York Times article on Billiton and its six year effort fighting malaria in Mozambique.? Now it has come to my attention that The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Harvard?s School of Public Health, has released a paper, Business and Malaria: A...
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Got An Old Cell Phone? Don’t Throw It Out
"The fact that you can combine a business ? a profitable business ? with a useful service and a charitable good is a win, win, win,” Mike Newman told the USA Today.? You see, Mr. Newman is Vice President of Recellular, a triple bottom line company that collects used cell phones,...
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Microcredit in India: Will It Last?
Two weeks ago on these pages, Rob Katz blogged about an opinion piece in the New York Times, which discussed India?s brewing controversy over microcredit.? Last week, The Economist followed suit, writing its own opinion of the controversy, which, I must confess, is a lot rosier.? Here are...
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Rising Ventures: Enersud Brings Cleantech to the Countryside
Studies show that per-capita energy consumption is low in many emerging economies, where vast sections of the population may not have access to modern energy infrastructure. The World Bank reports that this is particularly the case in rural areas where access is often extremely costly for...
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Installing Wireless Internet in Rwanda
When Greg Whyler, an American tech entrepreneur, purchased Rwandatel, Rwanda?s government owned telecom monopoly, he found that his new company paid 12 employees ?whose sole job was to play on the company soccer team.?? Now that?s pretty cool!? Of course Greg Whyler didn?t think...
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The Latest News on the $100 Laptop
This fall more than 500 children in Thailand will be part of a pilot program for ?quality testing and debugging? of the $100 laptop.? The One Laptop Per Child program, which is supplying the computers, is the brainchild of tech guru Nicholas Negroponte, who has spent the last several years...
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