NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Unselfish Technologists

Six social entrepreneurs bear witness to the fact that profit is not the only driver of innovation. In writing about the technology business, Red Herring urges its reporters to ?follow the money,? and track the investors, sellers, and buyers of products and services. While the confluence of innovation and financing has been the key ingredient in creating centers of technology like Silicon Valley, money is not the only reason that people invest years and thousands of dollars to create...

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Red Herring (link opens in a new window)

Rural credit: Local lenders still rule the roost

Surinder Sud Despite a perceptible increase in the flow of rural credit from institutional sources, the share of the informal sector, notably traditional moneylenders and traders, in farmers’ outstanding debts remain as high as 43.3 per cent at the all-India level. This share is higher than the national average in several agriculturally progressive states, including Punjab, Andhra P...

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rediff.com (link opens in a new window)

FMS Delhi bags Tata Business Leadership award

FMS Delhi has won the coveted Tata Business Leadership Awards (TBLA) 2006 at the grand finale held on January 4, 2005 at the Tata Management Training Centre (TMTC), Pune. Close on their heels were IIM Bangalore and S P Jain Mumbai, who were declared the 1st National runners up and 2nd National runners up respectively. The three teams emerged victorious after a formidable clash with four other contenders, namely IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Lucknow, IIM Calcutta and XLRI Jamshedpur.

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Indiainfoline.com (link opens in a new window)

RBI introduces no-frills accounts for the masses

K.V.Rao The New Year is bringing a lot of good news to people desirous of availing banking services. Thanks to the initiative taken by the RBI, commercial banks in India have launched ?no-frills? accounts in response to the RBI?s call for social and financial inclusion of the country?s population, at the bottom of the pyramid. The banks have now understood that it makes sound business sense to open such accounts. ?No-frills? accounts Anybody with a ?zero-bal...

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Deccan Herald (link opens in a new window)

C.K. Prahalad speaks about the BOP at MLK Symposium.

Most wouldn?t combine the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. with corporate strategy. Business School Prof. C. K. Prahalad used the opening speech of the 19th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Symposium to do exactly that. His research in marketing to low-income consumers in developing countries is intended to give the poor a voice in the elitist business world. ?We have to go from looking at the poor as a problem to looking at them as opportunity,? Prahalad said. Prahal...

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The Michigan Daily (link opens in a new window)

Afghan women break into a ?man?s world?

Gayle Tzemach When Shahla Nawabi arrived in Kabul to visit her father in 2002, she intended to stay for three months. More than three years later, she is part of an emerging class of women entrepreneurs launching businesses in a nation where women were banned from work and study only five years ago. ADVERTISEMENT ?Coming back home and seeing the situation of the country, there was just so much to do here,? Ms Nawabi says of her decision to leave London, her home since...

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Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

The writer is Senior Research Associate, Centre for Civil Society

Cell phones are every where, even our maid has one.? These words were to reassure me that the gadgets I was leaving behind in the US were available in India. The most illuminating word was ?even? ? a qualifier that embodies the discrimination inherent in our perception those ?deserving? of high-technology. This discrimination of perception limits entrepreneurial imagination and represents the barrier that must be crossed to tap the social and economic promise of commerce at the ?Bottom of the p...

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Business Standard (link opens in a new window)

In mismanaged countries a way must be found to change the basic system. Many multinationals have done just this, as a matter of course, while at the same time making the profits upon which their survival depends. Their initiatives not only provide jobs and raise incomes; they also improve education and give individuals motivation to pursue it. Education, after all, requires more than just buildings, teachers and texts. The world?s multinational corporations ? 63,000 of them at ...

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Daily Times (link opens in a new window)