NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Hacer negocio con los pobres

Suena pol?ticamente incorrecto, pero quiz? la manera m?s efectiva de luchar contra la pobreza sea convertir en ?clientes’ a los m?s desfavorecidos. Por su parte, las empresas que lo consigan descubrir?n un mercado de 4.000 millones de personas. En tiempos de globalizaci?n, no hay pieza m?s codiciada por una multinacional que descubrir un nuevo mercado. Para muchos, es posible que no haya que rebuscar tanto para encontrarlo y, de paso, ayudar en la lucha contra la pobreza y el s...

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Expansion (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Easterly Says Bill Gates Has `Blind Spot’ in Poverty Aid

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- William Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University, spoke with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene on Feb. 15 from Washington about the achievements and challenges of global aid programs and his assessment of Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates’s poverty-fighting strategy. (Source: Bloomberg) Listen / Download Podcast (mp3) ...

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Bloomberg News (link opens in a new window)

Our Cells, Ourselves

The home is remote, even by Tibetan standards. Charming carvings cannot disguise how primitive it is. Not only does it have no toilet, it doesn’t have an outhouse. Or even a designated hole in the ground. It does, however, boast one very great prize -- a ringing cellphone. Why? That is exactly the question I kept asking, says Kevin Kelly , one of the founders of Wired ...

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Washington Post (link opens in a new window)

Twenty Hubs and No HQ

Growth prospects for multinational corporations (MNCs) are expanding enormously. In Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, there are more than 4 billion new potential customers whose rising incomes and aspirations have created an unprecedented market for all manner of goods and services. They want to own homes, to eat nutritious food, and to have varied entertainment options. They want toothpaste, cell phones, and motorcycles. To cater to these needs, business-to-business enterprises w...

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strategy+business (link opens in a new window)

Prescriptions for helping poor people help themselves

LONDON: He had two wives, three children and two acres of land scattered in the hills of Nepal. One acre produced maize, pulses and monsoon vegetables to feed them, and the other monsoon rice. In good years they made $100 by selling surplus rice, but in bad ones they ran out of food before the monsoon harvest. Like 800 million other people in the world, Krishna Bahadur Thapa and his family had less than $1 a day to live on. How could they escape from poverty? That w...

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International Herald Tribune (link opens in a new window)

Soros announces $17 mn for Indian SMEs

The Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF), Omidyar Network, and Google.org announced a new $17 million Small to Medium Enterprise Investment Company for India to create job opportunities and spur greater economic participation for a large segment of the population. This joint company will provide capital to small and medium businesses in underserved markets. With this investment, we will meet the huge demand to serve smaller businesses in India that have little access to finance...

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Hindustan Times (link opens in a new window)

Spotlight: WNDW 2nd Edition

The project In January 2006, the WNDW team released the first edition of Wireless Networking in the Developing World . Since then, the project has grown to include a bunch of new resources, including: A revised and expanded second English edition of the book Various translations, including Spanish , French , ...

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WNDW.net (link opens in a new window)

The Impact of Cell Phones on Grain Markets in Africa’s Niger

A new research study by Jenny Aker, an independent PhD candidate at the University of California-Berkeley has looked at the impact of mobile phones on the prices of farm produce in the African country of Niger - which faced serious food shortages in 2005. In theory, the increasing use of mobile phones should have improved distribution efficiency and hence lower the variations in prices around the country. The study set out to see if that was the case. With an estimated 85 percent ...

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cellular-news (link opens in a new window)