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

Grupo Salinas Founder and Chairman Ricardo B. Salinas Addresses FIU Highilighting Opportunities at t

With a presentation entitled Selling to the Poor: a 100-Year Success Story, Mr. Salinas shared some of the entrepreneurial and social development opportunities of businesses that focus on low-income consumers, a market referred to by University of Michigan Business School Professor C.K. Prahalad as the Bottom of the Pyramid. The best solution to the problem of poverty is to create wealth, argued Mr. Salinas. We need to look for new entrepre...

Source

IT Business Net (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Why Business Models and Market Mechanisms Alone Are Not the Answer for Social Entrepreneurs: Lessons

In the field of social entrepreneurship there is a tendency for some to view profits or earned income models as the pivotal element in the sustainability and scaling up of social mission organizations.? The Global Social Benefit Incubator has worked with more than seventy organizations around the world. Twenty-five percent of its alumni organizations have scaled up significantly and an additional fifty-five percent are sustaining their valuable social mission impacts with what appear to be vi...

Source

CSTS (Santa Clara University) (link opens in a new window)

Question Box: The Internet Ror Remote Places, No Literacy Or Keyboards Required

The Question Box is a project from UC Berkeley’s Rose Shuman to bring some of the benefits of the information on the Internet to places that are too remote or poor to sustain a live Internet link. It works by installing a single-button intercom in the village that is linked to a nearby town where there is a computer with a trained, live operator. Questioners press the intercom, describe their query to the operator, who runs it, reads the search results, and discusses them with the questio...

Source

Boing Boing (link opens in a new window)

In India, How Do Rooftop Gardens Grow?

HYDERABAD, India -- Can growing vegetables on India’s slum rooftops and holding cooking classes in slum alleyways make a difference? That is the contention of a new program that’s about to begin in a 100-acre slum in the capital city of India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh. The country has seen hundreds of programs over the years designed to combat malnutrition. The latest aims to clear out the garbage, create a patchwork of small organic farms to grow vegetables th...

Source

The Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Globalization Must Benefit Bottom Billion Of Poor

This year must be devoted to helping the bottom billion of the world’s poorest to tap into global economic growth, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) today. In a globalizing world, we require an international economic environment that fosters development, Mr. Ban said to UNCTAD’s Executive Committee, which is gearing up for ...

Source

Scoop (link opens in a new window)

Negocios en mercados pobres

Crear riqueza es mejor que repartir riqueza. Dan raz?n a este planteamiento un n?mero creciente de personas que, en distintas partes del mundo, se empe?an en aportar al desarrollo de los pa?ses menos favorecidos. La creencia tradicional es que los negocios se enfoquen en la parte de la poblaci?n con recursos. Seg?n el Banco Mundial, el sector privado descuida la oportunidad de negocios que representan los 4.000 millones de pobres que hay en el mundo, mercado que representa unos $5 ...

Source

Nacion.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Lessons in development

To judge by their activities, one might think some MBA students at Cornell’s Johnson School in the state of New York were pursuing a degree in international development. Their projects range from water purification technologies for poor African communities to a sustainable tourism initiative in Croatia. Students are required to apply social, economic and environ...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Concibe tu estrategia para los m?s pobres como una innovaci?n de negocio

Robert Katz I Responsable de inversiones en proyectos de BOP de Acumen Fund y analista del World Resource Institute. Juanma Roca Robert Katz, autor del famoso libro Los pr?ximos 4.000 millones y uno de los mayores expertos del mundo en la denominada base de la pir?mide o bottom of the pyramid (BOP), ha participado esta semana en una jornada organizada por la Fundaci?n Compromiso Empresarial y Accenture sobre C?mo hacer negocios en la base de la pir?mide.

Source

Gaceta de Los Negocios (link opens in a new window)