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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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- Education
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- academia
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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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Bikes That Power Laptops
I?ll come right out and say it: I have discovered a cure for childhood obesity.? But it?s not the kid?s meal equivalent of the Atkins or South Beach Diet.? Because serious problems require serious solutions, I suggest that we turn to Uganda and see how villagers power their cell phones,...
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What’s In a Word?
A great deal apparently. Throughout history we’ve seen that simple misunderstandings of words, or individual phrases out of context have had major effects from the absurd (JFK infamously calling himself a jelly doughnut), to the controversial (see David Howard’s 1999 gaffe) to...
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- Education
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- academia
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India’s American Dream
In its latest issue, Business Week published an interesting article on the Ramanujan School of Mathematics, a preparatory academy that trains low-income students in the art of test taking: ?Every April, some 230,000 Indian youths sharpen their pencils and sit for the intensely competitive...
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Artisans and Open Source: PeopLink and CatGen
PEOPlink is a non-profit organization that trains and equips grassroots artisan organizations all over the world to market their goods directly to customers over the Internet ? thereby minimizing the impact of middlemen and maximizing return to the artisan. CatGen is a related open-source...
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- Education
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- academia, creative economy
