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The Next Billion
Till a few years ago, N. Padmavathy and her six friends were daily-wage workers in an export unit in Chennai, with a monthly income of not more than Rs 2,000. At times, when she had to pay her children’s school fees or take her children to the doctor, she had to borrow at hefty rates from the local money lender. As a daily-wage worker, she could never predict her income, till she discovered the power of microcredit. A Rs 15,000 loan each, taken by Padmavathy and he...
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Role of academic entrepreneurship
The development of science and technology (S&T) in Malaysia has been policy-driven and strategically triggered by the government. This is not an anomaly in any developing economy; however, based on findings of the National Survey of Research and Development conducted by the Malaysian Science and Technology Information Centre, Malaysia seems slow in the S&T development process compared to its East Asian counterparts such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China and India. Per...
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An Increasingly Affluent Middle India Is Harder to Ignore
C.K. Prahalad, professor of strategy at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business, is looking for the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. In his book by that name, he says that huge markets exist among the poor in countries such as India, and that multinationals should tailor their plans and products to these consumers. At the other end of the spectrum, luxury goods manufacturers are pouring into India. The International Herald Tribune will hold its annual...
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The New Global Middle Class: Potentially Profitable — but Also Unpredictable
A new global middle class is rising up from poverty in emerging economies around the world, providing competition for labor and resources, but also enormous promise for multinationals that tailor products and services to the burgeoning ranks of first-time consumers, according to Wharton faculty and analysts. Coca-Cola’s newly appointed chief executive Muhtar Kent sees this market as critical to his company’s future and describes the scale of the opportunity as equivalent to...
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Tourism’s New Wave
David Aabo is en route from Peru to New York City after having spent much of the last few years in the South American country investigating opportunities for development that might help local entrepreneurs build a sustainable regional economy. Like many dedicated surfers, Aabo views the world through the prism of a surfboard stoked on visions of exotic destinations and epic waves. So single-minded, this breed has sometimes derisively been dubbed surf colonialists -- follow...
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School for social entrepreneurs
Sustainability of projects is important for social service sector organisations to work efficiently. And, with the management of the sector becoming more complex each day, the Centre for Social Initiative and Management (CSIM), started in 2001, has been providing training for would-be ?social entrepreneurs’. The philosophy is simple enough as the co-ordinator of CSIM at Chennai, Latha Suresh, explains: There are many NGOs doing good work in many areas. But they do not man...
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In a “wise” move Timorese women venture into business after decades of conflict
When Timor-Leste descended into a political crisis in April/May 2006, just five years after the restoration of independence from Indonesia, Mrs. Joaquina Da Silva, a 33 year-old mother of four was among the first group of women displaced from the capital, Dili. She then fled to the safe havens of Baucau which is her ancestral homeland. ’When our house was destroyed in Dili, I came here with my displaced family and just nothing else,’ she says, her voice chocking with emotion....
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Warning: Habits May Be Good for You
A FEW years ago, a self-described militant liberal named Val Curtis decided that it was time to save millions of children from death and disease. So Dr. Curtis, an anthropologist then living in the African nation of Burkina Faso, contacted some of the largest multinational corporations and asked them, in effect, to teach her how to manipulate consumer habits worldwide. Dr. Curtis, now the director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medi...
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