NextBillion - A WDI Publication

GE: Reinventing Tech for the Emerging World

By Jena McGregor How GE Healthcare engineers combined technology and creativity to develop the MAC 400, a portable ECG machine suitable for the Indian market GE Healthcare engineer Davy Hwang’s marching orders were straightforward. Take a 15-lb. electrocardiograph machine that cost $5.4 million and took three and a half years to develop. Squeeze the same technology into a portable device...

Source

Business Week (link opens in a new window)

Root Capital Helps Grass-Roots Eco-Ventures

By Jim Wyss In South Florida a few months ago to attend an award ceremony for the Ashoka social entrepreneurship foundation, William Foote, a former Miamian, talked about Root Capital -- the nonprofit he founded in 2000 to finance environmentally sustainable businesses in the developing world. Based in Cambridge, Mass., Root Capital targets grass-roots ventures, such as organic coffee and cocoa cooperatives, that are too large to benefit from micro-loans...

Food and the Poor: The New Face of Hunger

From The Economist Print Edition Samake Bakary sells rice from wooden basins at Abobote market in the northern suburbs of Abidjan in C?te d’Ivoire. He points to a bowl of broken Thai rice which, at 400 CFA francs (roughly $1) per kilogram, is the most popular variety. On a good day he used to sell 150 kilos. Now he is lucky to sell half that. People ask the price and go away without buying anything, he complains. In early April they went away and ri...

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The Economist (link opens in a new window)

Social business ? The bigger, the better

Responsible companies can learn a lot from social entrepreneurs about selling to the poor, but first they must understand how their core business contributes to social and economic development. Big companies coming to the field of social entrepreneurship for the first time could be forgiven for feeling a little lost. While the term social entrepreneur has been around for about 30 years, few can agree on what it means. Add social business and &q...

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Ethical Corporation (link opens in a new window)

Airtime as Remittance: Good Deal for the Poor?

By Mark Pickens The New York Times recently highlighted the work of Jan Chipchase, a Nokia researcher trying to understand how the poor use mobile phones. The article includes a report that Ugandans are using prepaid airtime as an informal money transfer mechanism, particularly to get value back to family in rural areas. Ugandan...

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CGAP Technology Program Blog (link opens in a new window)

Food Shortages: Think Big

By Paul Collier If we’re going to solve this global problem, we need more globalisation and less sentimentality The world price of staple foods has rocketed, almost doubling in the past 18 months. For consumers in the rich world this massive increase in the price of wheat or rice is an inconvenience; for consumers in the poorest countries it is a catastrophe. Food accounts for around half of the entire budget of most Africans. Of...

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Times Online (link opens in a new window)

Small-scale Dairy Producers

By Joan Chirwa Dairy farming is one of the most rewarding agri-businesses which can help reduce poverty in rural areas, says Rebecca Mumba, a retired journalist. An industry largely driven by small-holder farmers located in different parts of the country, the dairy sector has recorded numerous improvements over the years, with the small-scale producers accounting for the largest milk production figures on an annual basis. According to rec...

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The Post (link opens in a new window)

Food Inflation, Riots Spark Worries for World Leaders

By Bob Davis and Douglas Belkin WASHINGTON -- Finance ministers gathered this weekend to grapple with the global financial crisis also struggled with a problem that has plagued the world periodically since before the time of the Pharaohs: food shortages.Surging commodity prices have pushed up global food prices 83% in the past three years, according to the World Bank -- putting huge stress on some of the world’s poorest nations. Even as the ministers met, Haiti...

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