NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Here?s a safe goal: saving the world. Bridging the digital divide is the best solution for many problems plaguing the developing world - healthcare, education, debilitating poverty - according to a group of 2,000 business and world leaders who met in Austin last week. But the question of which ways best connect the world?s poor was vigorously debated at the World Congress on Information Technology, which meets every two years to discuss how technology can address needs. Po...

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Star Telegram

Intel Shows Education Laptop

Intel CEO Paul Ottelini showed off low-cost notebook PCs the company has developed for educating students in emerging markets and said the company would provide training to 400,000 teachers in Mexico by 2010 as well as provide PCs to 300,000 teachers by the end of 2006.

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Red Herring (link opens in a new window)

Starbucks + Ahimsa = Aarthik Swaraj

SASWATI CHAKRAVARTY He has Starbucks in his eyes and ahimsa in his heart. Vikram Akula, the 37-year-old founder of SKS Microfinance, dreams of putting the two together to attain ?aarthik swaraj?. Akula, who finds a place in Time?s list of 100 ?People Who Shape Our World?, believes corporatising the NGO sector is a must for meaningful poverty alleviation programmes. ?A for-profit business model is the fastest way to put more money into more poor hands,? he says in ...

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The Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Students’ work profits others

(Excerpt) For the group of students participating in the Students in Free Enterprise program at Roberts Wesleyan College, One drop can create many ripples is a slogan to live and work by. [...] One problem the SIFE team has tried to address is urban poverty. In one project, the SIFE team started five-day business camps for high school students from the inner city. The camps taught the attendees concepts of the acumen and ethics of running a ...

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Democrat & Chronicle (link opens in a new window)

The Business of Development: Innovation, Profits, and the Common Good

Hear the word poverty, and the image of a bright-eyed child with an extended hand staring at you from the TV screen appears in your mind. Put the word business next to it, and the mental screen turns off, failing under the pressure of the oxymoron. Business and poverty are almost mutually exclusive; the affluence and life force of one is incompatible with the misery and lifelessness of the other. Or is it? Over the last f...

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GreenBiz.com (link opens in a new window)

Intel, AMD push wide web access with cheap PCs

Two of Silicon Valley’s biggest technology rivals will promote initiatives this week to grow their global business by providing low-cost computers to developing countries. Intel is announcing it will spend $1 billion to speed up the marketing of inexpensive computers to such emerging markets as such as India, China and Mexico. Its rival, Advanced Micro Devices, is already making bare-bones computers that cost $250 or less. While tech companies agree about the importa...

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Mercury News (link opens in a new window)

Life insurance coming to rural India, 1 town/day

Bajaj Allianz notches up some good numbers selling life insurance in India?s smaller towns. Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance was languishing among the also-rans about a year ago. Today, it is in the reckoning for the top slot among private sector life insurers. The credit for this goes to Sam Ghosh, Bajaj Allianz?s CEO and country head for Allianz, who transformed the company from a niche play to mass marketer. Ghosh was chosen to spearhead Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance in January 2004, after he deli...

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BusinessStandard.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Enterprise holds key to booming start-ups

When Wu Shengying’s wine-selling business failed in 2003, he abandoned farming in his hilly village in Shandong Province and turned to an idea that he hoped would please Chinese palates as much as KFC chicken wings [...] and after breaking several thousand eggs in experiments, he finally worked out a formula that he believes strikes a perfect balance between temperature and timing to make good roasted eggs. Wu’s roasted eggs, with ...

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chinagate.cn (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific