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

Have we got a business deal for you! Build a state-of-the-art cell-phone network in one of the world’s poorest countries. And include among your target customers the country’s poorest citizens -- many of whom live without running water, few of whom have ever seen a telephone. Laughable, right? Not when the entrepreneur behind this deal has spent 20 years building one of the world’s most remarkable financial institutions. Not when he ranks among the leading social innovators of his...

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Fast Company .com (link opens in a new window)

The Third World Goes High Tech

Corporations specializing in information technology have discovered a new market -- the world’s poor. But high-tech is often already there, and Third World innovations may soon be available in the developed world. The computer of the future is like a pet: always wanting to be fed -- not unlike an oversized Tamagotchi. Otherwise, it causes trouble. After 10 hours in front of the monitor, you have to run down to the nearest kiosk, buy a new prepaid card, scratch free the code and ty...

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Spiegel Online (link opens in a new window)

He was the second employee in Nokia?s mobile division, when few imagined Indian telecom would do so well. From marketing manager in 1995? after stints with Pepsico and Reckitt Benckiser ? to managing director of Nokia India, Sanjeev Sharma has played a pivotal role in ensuring the Finish company?s domination in the marketplace. Sharma, who declined to shift to Singapore for a larger role in Nokia because he thought ?India is were the action is? will bid the company adieu on June 30. He talks to ...

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The Business Standard (link opens in a new window)

BANGALORE: HP on Wednesday announced a revolutionary pen-based technology that allows users to compute in their respective languages even without prior knowledge of English or typing. The gesture-based keyboard [GKB], developed by researchers at HP Labs India, also holds the potential for Indian languages derived from the Devanagari ? Tamil scripts and Kannada scripts ? to be used in a similar manner. This is to benefit more than 1.5 billion non-Engli...

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The Hindu (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Growing in India: Food for the world

By Anand Giridharadas by Anand Giridharadas Within ...

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International Herald Tribune (link opens in a new window)

With focus on poor, firms vie for piece of global market

By JOSHUA BENTON / The Dallas Morning News Gerald Heeger is a newcomer to Texas, but he isn’t afraid to set Texas-size goals. In five years, he wants his company, Whitney International University, to enroll more than half a million students around the world and be on its way to becoming the biggest provider of higher education the Earth has ever seen. How’s that for audacity? Dr. Heeger said in his downtown Dallas office. I beli...

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Dallas Morning News (link opens in a new window)

Joseph Hanania, Managing Director, HP Middle-East, participated at the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Middle-East. Held at Sharm EL Sheikh in Egypt, the event was attended by more than 1,200 government, business and civil society leaders from 46 countries to help prepare the way for a more prosperous and peaceful future for the Middle East. Participants looked at the role of businesses as the engines of job creation and the need for leaders to work together for pe...

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AMEinfo.com (link opens in a new window)

This isn’t just a job for governments and aid agencies, he said. Private companies have a role to play too but a public/private balance will have to be found between the kind of basic infrastructure work that will never return a profit and those that will. World Bank Group head Paul Wolfowitz Monday called for increased investment and involvement in development projects targeting poverty particularly in Africa. Africa’s infrastructure may have been a...

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Computer Partner (link opens in a new window)