NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Omidyar, Indigo Trust to Fund Social Innovation Center in Nigeria

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and LONDON, July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Omidyar Network and The Indigo Trust announced today their support and intent to fund the Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, Nigeria. The Hub is a non-profit, social enterprise centered around a shared work space where stakeholders from multiple walks of Nigerian life come together to collaboratively create tech-based solutions that address social challenges facing Nigerian society. It will be Nigeria’s fi...

Source

PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Muhammad Yunus Banks on Beating the Enemies of Microfinance

Muhammad Yunus is good at being calm. At 7.30am in a chilly office in central London, he talks with urbane charm and all the dispassionate objectivity of a philosopher as he considers the Bangladeshi government’s campaign against him, and the possibility that it might destroy his life’s work building up the world’s first ...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Investment Driven by Guilt, and That?s Good

By Thomas Kostigen SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) - Are we increasingly investing out of guilt? I’d say so. Look at the amount of money that has flowed into socially responsible funds: $3 trillion, up 34% since 2005, according to the Social Investment Forum. Got a social conscience? Feel guilty? Invest your conscience away. It’s the 21st century version of the selling of indulgences. More money is flowing into "good" investments than ever. Take the lo...

Source

MarketWatch (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Uncategorized

Arab Spring, Start-Up Summer?

Like so many other young people in Cairo, Yasmine el-Mehairy saw no future in Egypt . What she saw was a dead end. Then came Tahrir Square. Six months after an uprising led by people like her ousted Hosni Mubarak and overturned the established order of the Arab world, Ms. Mehairy has joined the ranks of Egypt’...

Source

The New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

North Africa & Near East

Fairfax Enters India to Invest in Local Firms

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, a $30 billion (Rs.1.3 trillion)-plus diversified financial services company that owns stakes in Kraft Foods Inc. and Dell Inc., is entering India to invest in listed and unlisted Indian companies, a senior company official said. It will buy both minority as well as controlling stakes. Founded by Indian-born Prem Watsa , 61, popularly known as the Warren Buffett of Canada, Fairfax has appointed Harsha Raghavan, former India head of private equ...

Source

livemint.com (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Environment

Region

South Asia

TED Fellows and Social Entrepreneurship?s Middle Ages

Our collective imagination of the European Middle Ages conjures an age of darkness, disease, war, feudalism and feuding. The true story is much more complicated. Indeed, the Medieval era was a necessary period of challenge and experimentation - a period in which political systems evolved and in which understanding of the natural world struggled move from mysticism to science. It was an era that, although challenging, prepared the Western World for Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and Enlig...

Source

Inc. Tech (link opens in a new window)

Real Change Requires Politics

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - Every now and then, a new career path seizes the imagination of the global elite. Today it is social enterprise, in which earnest, problem-solving elites devote themselves to social causes, using the ethos and methods of business. In the 2000s, investment banking and consulting had a near-duopoly on the top I.Q.’s. We saw how that went. Now those I.Q.’s are gravitating to challenges like growing mushrooms in discarded coffee grounds, allowing strangers...

Source

The New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Maternova Employs Technology to Create New Solutions to the Age-old Problem of Maternal Mortality

One of the oldest, most respected professions in the world is midwifery. And yet, midwives working in developing countries often lack simple resources like electric lights and towels. Meg Wirth founded the web-based startup Maternova, which provides vital obstetric tools and information to midwives and maternity hospitals around the world. Founded in 2009, the mission-driven for-profit venture aims to use the data-dissemination powers of technology to reach maternity care workers most in need...

Source

Dowser (link opens in a new window)