NextBillion - A WDI Publication

New Report: Clean, Safe Energy for the Base of the Pyramid

For those who haven’t lived in the darkness that 1.6 billion people without electricity face at night, it is perhaps surprising that energy be ranked among other pressing concerns such as health, or education, or housing. For the poorest people of the world, access to clean and safe energy is an entry into a new life.

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Student Conferences and Engagement Opportunities: Reinventing Business Education?

The east coast will be particularly busy. Today, Columbia Business School will host its annual Social Enterprise Conference, with just a a bit over a month to go before Cornell dresses up to host the 2009 Net Impact North America Conference. An opportunity to start reinventing business education?

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An Alternative Urban Vision for India – Affordable Housing

I recently attended the First Habitat Summit, a joint initiative by India Habitat Centre and Urban Habitats Forum. There were some of the discussions which I feel qualify as a good read for the BoP community. One of them was on the topic of Affordable Housing. This engaging session was chaired by Ashish Karamchandani from Monitor Group...

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A Simple Solution for the Information Divide

I guarantee that anybody reading this blog takes for granted the wealth of information at their fingertips. Looking for something? Google it.But for the billions of of people in the developing world that don’t even have a mobile phone, what do they do?

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Legatum Conference: Progress Through Innovation in Action

This image was the winner of the Legatum Photo Competition India track, in which women, trained by engineers, prepare food with solar cookers to sell to people in neighboring villages.

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Apply Now to Become a 2011 Acumen Fund Fellow

Acumen Fund is excited to announce that the application process for the 2010-2011 Class of Acumen Fund Fellows is now open! (Full disclosure: I work at Acumen Fund and the organization is one of the NextBillion’s Founding Sponsors.)Applications will be accepted online until 11:59pm EST on Thursday, November 5, 2009.

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BoP Conference Report: Be Patient, Stay Longer, Come Back

This past weekend, 100+ attendees convened in Ann Arbor, Michigan for "Creating a Shared Roadmap: Collaboratively Advancing the Base of the Pyramid Community." Despite the tortured title - one only an academic could love! - the 3-day event was incredibly vibrant and merits a quick report-out here on NextBillion.

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Farmers Rejoice: Exploitative Middlemen in the Spotlight

The Financial Times (US) published a full-page article October 2 entitled "To feed a need" that brought to mind research that WRI generated back in 2003 on the Indian conglomerate, ITC, and its rural engagement strategy called e-Choupal. The article and the case study document the benefits of direct market access by poor rural farmers in India.

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