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Challenging a Meme: When ’Africans’ Are ’No One’
You may have seen the image online: A bus station photo-shot featuring two posters in simple style, with the captions "one dies, million cry" under the Apple brand mark, and "millions die, no one cries" under a map of Africa. The poster implies that the world would be a better place if only people (Westerners) mourned African deaths more. Really?
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Unconvention 2011 Hones in on Landing Top Socent Talent
Villgro’s Unconvention is billed as the ONLY conference in India focused on social entrepreneurs, while addressing the overlap between innovation AND social entrepreneurship. With just a few days before the third Unconvention kicks off in Chennai, I spoke with Sucharita Kamath, head of Villgro’s Innovation Ecosystem, on what to expect.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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SELCO: A Business, Ongoing Case Study in Solar-Powered Social Impact
SELCO, a social enterprise traditionally focused on providing solar energy to the rural underserved, has launched a new urban model in India that has helped electrify a set of slum-dwelling households in Bangalore. The early success has been less about the feat of solar power in slums, and more about creating a ripple effect for social impact.
- Categories
- Energy, Impact Assessment
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How to Scale Community Impact With a Market-Based Approach
"In a social business, community impact comes first," was one of the fundamental insights at the first Community Impact Development Group meeting hosted by Ashoka and the Siemens Stiftung last year. But, what do we understand by Community Impact? Why is it so critical to systems change? What are the diverse strategies that best achieve it?
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Engaging Peer-to-Peer Networks for Enterprise Selection: A New Pilot VC Model for the Impact Sector
Ross Baird, executive director of Village Capital (VilCap), identified one of the sector’s main problems: even though there are over 300 funds that label themselves as impact funds, fewer than five will invest in deals that are $250,000 or less. VilCap aims to radically democratize this mismatch between investors and impact enterprises.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
- Tags
- venture capital
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From Occupy Wall St. to Impact Investing, 2 Visions of Markets at Net Impact 2011
As the Occupy Wall Street protesters continued their encampment in Portland near the Net Impact 2011 venue last weekend, it became difficult to reconcile two visions of international markets. Still, speakers posited that concepts of global development and markets were merging fast, and offered the best solution to reducing economic inequality.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Markets of the Poor: Limits and Opportunities
Marketing socially useful products to the poor offers only limited business opportunities. Still, there are some profitable opportunities and we need creative entrepreneurs to design the right business models to serve the poor. To profitably serve the poor, firms need to make the cost-quality trade-off to make the products affordable by the poor.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Two Ways to Kill Potential: Liberia and Cameroon
Earlier this month, two western African countries held presidential elections. On the surface, they have little in common ? one country recently emerged from a brutal civil war and has an abysmal economy; the other has been peaceful for decades and enjoys abundant revenue streams. And yet both countries are classic stories of wasted potential.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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