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How a Classic Model of Social Commerce Can Teach the World How to Save
In a dusty hallway in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, two women barter used clothes for pots and pans. The going rate today is ten pieces of used clothing for one new tin pot. This is the informal economy, growing as the world’s population continues to urbanise in mega-cities like Mumbai and São Paulo. In Mumbai, where 60% of residents live in slums, activity in the informal economy, from bartering to neighborhood savings groups to co-ops, rivals the scale of the formal economy of...
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- South Asia
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HSBC Invests ?4m in Big Issue Invest Social Enterprise Fund
Big Issue Invest has edged closer to its £10m target for its Social Enterprise Investment Fund, with HSBC Bank investing £4m, bringing the total committed capital to £8m. Big Issue Invest (BII) is now seeking to raise a further £2m to complete its £10m target by the March 2012. The Social Enterprise Investment fund aims to provide creatively structured, medium-term growth capital to social enterprises that have the potential to have a significant social imp...
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia
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Bringing Online Education to Mongolia, in Wireless Backpacks
As a turbulent snowstorm whips across the vast, desolate Mongolian grasslands, a group of schoolchildren huddle over laptops, their eyes transfixed as the sagacious Sal Khan works through Newtonian physics. But Khan is only reaching these kids because of a bold initiative from another creative edupreneur: Neil Dsouza , age 27, cofounder of TeachAClass.org , ...
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Rural Peru Gets Connected
The connection was not of crisp video quality, but the chorus of schoolchildren from San José de Huamaní, near Ica in the south, could be heard loud and clear: "Good morning," they chanted. Hundreds of kilometres away, they were greeted with applause, through video link, by a brightly lit conference room full of Peruvian and European Union officials. They were meeting in Lima to announce the completion of an ...
- Region
- Latin America
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Vodafone Increases Banking Options in Rural India with Mobile Service
Vodafone India and HDFC Bank have announced plans to launch a mobile banking service across the country next year after a successful trial period, according to an Economic Times article . The service, which is called ’M-Paisa’ (named after its monetary unit, the p...
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- South Asia
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Selling Water, Health Care in the Developing World
In rural India, deep in Punjab - about 90 minutes from the Pakistani border - getting clean drinking water is a challenge. Well water often has high levels of dangerous chemicals. Surface water is contaminated with pesticides and agricultural waste. Getting adequate health care is equally challenging. Government hospitals are often far away, and lines are long. Here, in places like a dusty rural town called Rajiana, a 2-year-old company called Healthpoint Services is trying to fig...
- Region
- South Asia
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How Vineet Rai Has Made Microfinance Advisory Intellecap into a Rs 30 Crore Venture
Age at starting business: 30 years Company name: Intellecap Headquarters: Hyderabad Seed capital: Rs 1 lakh Source of money: Parents-in-law, personal savings Turnover after first year: Rs 12 lakh Turnover in 2010-11: Rs 30 crore In a country where advice is abundant and free, making a career out of it may seem like a risky proposition. Fortunately for me, the gamble paid of...
- Region
- South Asia
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The 4 Ways Big Corporations Flirt with Socially Responsible Business
The last decade has given rise to many experiments by companies to incubate socially responsible business models. Large financial institutions have become hosts to microfinance divisions (Citi, Morgan Stanley). Energy companies have experimented with base-of-the-pyramid business models for emerging markets, aligning social utility (access to energy) with business strategy (long term growth). And social enterprises like The Body Shop and Ben & Jerry’s have been acquired by major multin...