Scott Anderson

Giving Thanks for Two New NB Staffers

On this, the eve of Thanksgiving, I’d like to express personal and professional thanks to two NextBillion contributors: Kevin Keepper and Oscar Abello.

I’m happy to announce Kevin has agreed to sign on as a NextBillion Editor, joining the editorial team alongside Nilima Achwal and Kishor Nagula. Meanwhile, Oscar has come on board as a Staff Writer having already penned several insightful posts as a Guest Writer. Kevin is Development & Communications Coordinator at TechnoServe (one of NextBillion’s Associate Partners) and Oscar is global programs coordinator for the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), which partners with local organizations to engage entrepreneurs in democratic governance.

Kevin (left) and Oscar.

Kevin has kept up us up to speed on issues ranging from capacity building to food security as seen by TechnoServe, which works to develop agricultural value chains and SMEs, while fostering entrepreneurship across Africa, Latin America and India. He’s also drawn attention to valuable work outside of the mainstream with posts on an organization that applies violence prevention to disease control and more recently, he helped to source a thought-provoking post on the promise of goldenberries in Peru. Kevin’s role as an editor will include helping Nextbillion continuously update our newsfeed, source and edit posts from the field, and help us sharpen our focus BoP issues tied to agriculture.

Oscar was sharing his views on NextBillion before he graduated from college. Rob Katz discovered Oscar in 2007 after reposting one of his college school newspaper columns. (Yeah, he’s that sharp). At CIPE, Oscar co-edits the CIPE Development Blog, and his main focus is on the intersection of governance and enterprise. But as you can see from recent posts on the microfinance crisis and the savings initiative announced recently by the Gates Foundation, he’s very adept at explaining complex issues and advancing the discussion in novel ways.

We’re looking forward to continued great work from these guys, but not this week. Because we’re based in the U.S. we’ll be taking a couple days’ break for Thanksgiving. We’ll be back in the swing of things on Saturday for Francisco’s weekly roundup.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving!

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