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

Seven Questions: Wiring the World’s Poor

Most of the world?s population, including the vast majority of the developing world, remains unwired. Everyone agrees on the need to bridge this digital divide, but there?s hardly agreement on how to get the job done. Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett has been at the center of the debate. In a recent conversation with FP, Barrett fired back at his critics and sounded off on the future of the Internet. FOREIGN POLICY: Last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Nicho...

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Foreign Policy (link opens in a new window)

UN Warning to Silicon Valley Over Digital Rift

Silicon Valley has been slow to develop technology and business approaches specifically suited to customers in the emerging world, according to representatives at a UN-sponsored gathering in the US technology heartland this week. As a result, it risks missing out on one of the next big potential markets for its products, while also leaving a widening ?digital divide? that is seeing the growing ranks of broadband users in the developed world leap even further ahead. The warn...

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Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Entrevista con William J. Kramer

Development Through Enterprise Deputy Director and NextBillion writer Bill Kramer was interviewed by the Spanish newspaper Expansion on February 16. The article is attached as a PDF....

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Expansion (link opens in a new window)

Pierre Omidyar: Empower Seller

Pierre Omidyar turned eBay into the most successful company of the dotcom era. EBay likewise turned its founder into a multibillionaire, and in 1999, Omidyar set up a charitable foundation. But he tired of the nonprofit sector, and in 2004 he shuttered the foundation, instead launching Omidyar Network to fund both nonprofit and for-profit enterprises that create social value. In three years, Omidyar Network’s model, which has invested $60 million in nonprofits and $45 million in f...

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Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

C.K. Prahalad – Pyramid Schemer

It had the ring of something too good to be true: Multinational corporations could alleviate global poverty while boosting their bottom lines. But that was exactly what University of Michigan strategy guru C.K. Prahalad proposed three years ago in his best-selling The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Wharton School Publishing). He spotlighted a largely invisible emerging market--the world’s underclass--and called for global companies to kick over their tired notions of the poor as victi...

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Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Expert Sitings: Amir Alexander Hasson

Expert Sitings: Amir Alexander Hasson Amir Alexander Hasson is the founder and CEO of United Villages, a company that aims to provide the 2 billion people living in the rural areas of developing countries with e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and Internet access. Wi-fiplanet.com With the latest industry news, commentary, and product reviews, Wi-Fi Planet helps me keep my finger on the pulse of new wireless Internet technologies. It?s one place I go to find new product ...

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Foreign Policy (link opens in a new window)

Gates Foundation Provides $15.4 Million to Opportunity International To Help Build Microfinance Bank

Opportunity International, one of the world’s largest microfinance organizations, today announced it has received a $5.4 million grant and a $10 million loan from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The $15.4 million of capital will fund start-up microfinance banks to serve the poor in Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as expansion of its banking operations in Ghana. Opportunity International operates banks or financial institutions in 28 c...

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PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

PM approves strategy to expand microfinance outreach to 3 mln households

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has approved the strategy to expand microfinance outreach from one million to three million households by 2010. He was chairing a meeting here Wednesday to review the strategy prepared by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to increase the coverage of microfinance sector in Pakistan. The Prime Minister said Pakistan has come a long way in introducing and familiarizing the micro finance concept. However, strategic steps need to be taken and multiple approaches ...

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Associated Press of Pakistan (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific