NextBillion - A WDI Publication

25 entrepreneurs are solving the world’s toughest problems with creativity, ingenuity, and passion.

The entrepreneurial mind abhors a vacuum. Market failures, unmet demand, even the maddening lure of a blank napkin--all beckon as explicit invitations to invent. What defines an entrepreneur (as well as an entrepreneurial organization) is that relentless problem-solving approach, not the specifics of the problem itself. We typically associate such ingenuity with the transformation of problems into lucrative, shareholder-enriching companies. But the entrepreneurs you’ll meet in th...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Electricity Grid Construction Benefits Rural Tibetans

Cuchim Tayai, a villager in Keyu Village in Linzhou County in Lhasa, had used butter lamps like generations of his ancestors. Only after the second-phase of electricity grid construction in Tibet did he come to know electricity for the first time. My daughter now can do her homework without suffering from lamp smoke. We have TV sets, VCDs and electric appliances to make buttered tea, Cuchim Tayai said. Cuchim Tayai is among tens of tho...

Source

Xinhua News Agency (link opens in a new window)

Project to fund Mexican micro, small and medium-size enterprises

A $2 million grant from the Inter-American Development Bank?s Multilateral Investment Fund will help finance a project to involve Mexican micro, small and medium-size enterprises in ?base of the pyramid? market opportunities to provide better products and services to low-income consumers. The CESPEDES committee of Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE), an association supported by some of the largest corporations in Mexico, will carry out the project, which draws...

Source

Press Release (link opens in a new window)

85bn Cedis Micro-Credit For Rural Poor

The government has channelled ?85 billion (approx US$9.4 million) through the rural banks for lending as micro-credit to the economically active but poor in the rural areas for them to improve the quality of their lives. The Vice- President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, announce...

Source

graphic ghana (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Prepaid Roaming in Africa

by David Ajao The case for prepaid international roaming in Africa is very strong indeed. Most subscribers on cellular networks in Africa are on the prepaid platform. What better way could there have been to reach out to this large number of people who form the majority? None. Background According to Wikipedia, Roaming is a general term in wireless telecommunications that refers to the extending of connectivity service in a network that is differe...

Source

Mobile Africa (link opens in a new window)

Remittances to Africa Overtakes Foreign Direct Investment

Remittances from Africans working abroad in the period 2000-2003 averaged about US$17 billion per annum virtually overtaking Foreign Direct Investment flows which averaged about $15 billion per annum during the same period. These figures are contained in a report Resource Flows to Africa: An Update on Statistical Trends just released by the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa in New York. The report draws on official data from the World Bank, United Nat...

Source

United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (New York), PRESS RELEASE (link opens in a new window)

A silent rural revolution in managing microfinance

KOLKATA: Call it a business with a good cause. A strong but silent social revolution is taking place beyond urban borders. Surpassing all targets, an overwhelming number of 18 lakh credit-linked ?self help groups? (SHGs), being predominantly women-oriented, are working wonders in rural areas and in managing micro finance matters. Cumulative bank lendings to SHGs have grown to almost Rs 8,000 crore till November 2005. The southern states of Andhra Pra...

Source

Daily News & Analysis India (link opens in a new window)

Cisco Systems Sees Massive Potential in Developing World

Many African governments were beginning to spend heavily on telecommunications networks, seeing them as a platform through which to connect communities and start to challenge poverty. Two problems were how Cisco could penetrate so many countries, and the shortage of skills to support its technologies. Networking company Cisco Systems expects to sustain annual growth of 10%-15% for the next few years as the volume of traffic carried on global networks surge...

Source

Business Day (Johannesburg), Lesley Stones (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa