NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Rob Katz

Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones

Last night, I attended a panel session co-organized by the UN Foundation and Vodafone, the huge multinational telco based in the UK but active worldwide. The session highlighted a report recently released by Vodafone entitled, Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones. At the session, the report’s...

Categories

Uncategorized

John Paul

E-commerce in Kathmandu

I’m currently in Kathmandu researching an innovative e-commerce company called Thamel.com.? The business allows the Nepalese diaspora to purchase gifts online that are produced and delivered locally to their relatives back home.? By doing so, all the money spent is kept in the local economy,...

Categories

Uncategorized

Tags

World Resources Institute

SeanG

All the News that Fits

I? wanted to draw people’s attention to one of the more excting areas of this new site - the NewsRoom. When we were designing the site?- we searched for appropriate RSS feeds that?could be featured on the sidebars.? What we found was that there?is no single good source of news on this...

Categories

Uncategorized

John Paul

Understanding BOP Market Needs

One of the strongest themes to come out of the ’Eradicating Poverty Through Profit’ conference was the need for companies to?develop a?deeper?understanding of their target market’s needs before developing products and services that intend to fulfill them.? This report addresses some of the...

Categories

Uncategorized

Tags

World Resources Institute

Al Hammond

Summing Up the Show in San Francisco

The conference left a powerful impression?of huge companies and NGOs more or less on the same page, of governments and aid agencies endorsing business approaches to poverty, of entrepreneurs and visionary CEOs from enterprises in developing countries being recognized as pioneers in new...

Categories

Uncategorized

Al Hammond

Davos, Bednets, and Movie Stars

Inspired by this Time Europe article.Many commentators have noted how movie stars turned heads at the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos, in their efforts to drum up support for dealing with poverty. They also shifted attention away from?and may have undercut?perhaps the most promising...

Categories

Uncategorized

R&D for Developing Countries

SciDev.net has created a new dossier on R&D:This dossier, compiled under the guidance of an international panel of advisors, brings together a range of articles that cover topics of direct relevance to understanding R&D policy in developing countries. It contains policy briefs,...

Categories

Uncategorized

Rob Katz

Retailing in Poland

Europe’s Hypermarkets Under FireThis economist.com story (Retailing in Poland) makes an interesting point - how do consumers react when large multinational companies enter low-income markets? In this case, so-called hypermarkets (similar to American Wal-Mart stores) have been gaining market...

Categories

Uncategorized