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

Here are three recommendations for the end of the week:

Seth Godin’s essay about marketing to the base of the pyramid. Seth looks at what it entails to market products and services in low income settings. He includes interesting insights on the role of “early adopters”, which reminded me of Geoffey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” innovation and scalability theory. Moore’s workshop is part of the curriculum imparted to social entrepreneurs at Santa Clara’s GSBI.

PopTech’s 2010 Class of Social Innovation Fellows. I was glad to see familiar faces in the new group of Fellows, including Leila Janah from Samasource (interviewed here), Ben Lyon from FrontlineSMS:Credit (interviewed here) and Laura Stachel from WE CARE Solar, whom I met during last year’s Pop!Tech and recently took part at Santa Clara’s GSBI. It was a fascinating experience to meet last year’s class of Social Innovation Fellows, and I hope I have the privilege again this year.

NYU’s Seventh Annual Conference of Social Entrepreneurs. The calendar of social enterprise events continues to fill, adding to the upcoming SOCAP, Columbia Business School’s Conference and Net Impact’s Annual Conference. (Please forgive my east coast bias lately… still adjusting to New York but very interested to hear and spread the word about events and gatherings in other time zones!).

Lastly, here’s the video that Seth Godin shared along with his essay. Until next week!