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Taking the Internet to the People
Of all the hi-tech products and services that have been made available to the BOP, perhaps none has received as much attention as digital connectivity. And with good reason ? information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been used in a wide variety of ways to create social and...
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Innovative SMEs addressing environmental challenges
WRI’s New Ventures program held its third Investor Forum in Mexico last week and honored four enterprises as winners of the Business Plan competition. All nine companies that presented in the competition were selected for their commitment to environment and their financial profitability....
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PBS releases new microfinance documentary TONIGHT
Tonight, many PBS affiliates will feature the premiere of Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty, an hour-long documentary exploring issues of poverty and microcredit. The program?s web site includes an easy-to-use station finder that allows viewers to find out when it will...
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“Sad study” highlights aid’s ineffectiveness
What is the impact of development aid on economic growth?This critical question has been the topic of debate among development experts, economists, policymakers, civil society, and business ? especially here on NextBillion.net. Some answers may be emerging, and they point out that...
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The Collaboration Challenge
Rama Bijapurkar of the Times News Network just wrote an interesting piece on what may be the most difficult aspect of successfully engaging the market at the BOP ? the creation and maintenance of cross-sector partnerships. He writes:"One of the key ideas of the book (Fortune at...
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At Home and “Kozi” in a Dome
In August, mainstream media attention focused on the plightof thousands of Americans living in domes - most notably New Orleans’ Superdomeand the Houston Astrodome - after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. For those looking to read a vastly more positivestory about...
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Houses for the Poor in Mexico?
This Stanford Social Innovation Review reports on SOFOLES --a Mexican microlending program (read more about it in a 2000 Harvard report) that has succeeded in making home ownership more affordable for low-income residents. It’s not the newest idea, but the report has interesting sidenotes;...
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Microfinance meets Match.com
Kiva is an organization that empowers individuals to make charitable, microfinance loans. Anyone can look at the profiles of businesses (all rural entrepreneurs, currently all in Uganda), make a loan of as little as $25 through PayPal, and stay in contact with their sponsored business for the...
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