NextBillion - A WDI Publication

IFC Lends Support to Microloans in Russia, by Anna Smolchenko

The International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private lending unit, signed its first deal to support microloans in Russia on Friday. The $1 million loan to the Russian Women’s Microfinance Network is intended to support hundreds of microloans -- on average $1,500 each -- to entrepreneurs without the collateral to qualify for traditional bank loans. For us this is a very interesting project targeting segments of the population that are not being ser...

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The Moscow Times

Enterprising Women Reach Beyond Borders, by Ra?l Pierri

The Calma?ana cooperative, now made up of 25 women, pioneered organic farming in Uruguay. Their products, marketed under the brand name CampoClaro, are sold in local supermarkets and exported to Spain and Italy. The women now hope to expand their horizons even further thanks to an international project know as WINNER (Women into the New Network for Entrepreneurial Reinforcement). WINNER, created by Devnet (an international network that provides business information and ma...

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IPS

Ericsson wins rural India GSM contract

Ericsson has signed a US$250 million managed capacity expansion contract with Indian operator Bharti to provide managed services and expand its GSM/GPRS network into rural India. Ericsson’s technology and managed services solutions will enable Bharti to expand into around 3000 towns and villages in 15 regions. The rollout of the first phase of this ongoing coverage expansion into rural India will start in July 2005. Ericsson also provides its Expander solution for rural coverage ...

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celluar-news

Medicinal plant from Asia fights malaria, earns cash, by Tom Maliti

Small farmer Atanasia Vincent Moshia stands proudly next to the knee-high plants she’s growing to fight two African ills: malaria and poverty. In March, Moshia, who is also an agricultural extension officer with the Tanzanian government, switched from planting the corn and beans she’s been growing for years to artemisia annua, from which artemisinin is extracted to make a drug or a combination of drugs used to treat malaria. She expects it to be a more lucrative crop.

Source

AP Worldstream

Consortium plans computer kiosks for rural India, by Eric Auchard

Supporters of the project say they hope the Karnataka pilot will become a blueprint for setting up similar rural business centers in each village kiosk. Comat is working to digitize rural land records in stats across India. India has an estimated 147,000 rural villages. We see this as the ’rural services’ blueprint for populations in developing nations everywhere, Kish said. The consortium is one of several Indian projects seeking to tackle ...

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Reuters UK

Region

South Asia

Wyse sees profit in bridging the digital divide, by John Ribeiro

Thin client computing vendor Wyse Technology has identified applications for bridging the digital divide as a new key market opportunity, according to an executive of the San Jose, California, company. The company announced Thursday that it is part of a consortium that is piloting in India a platform for the delivery of services to rural areas around its thin client technology. It is a significant market opportunity for us, but it is too early however to say what per...

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IDG News Service

An Entrepreneur Who Cares, by Jeffrey Gangemi

Jeff Skoll earned his wealth as the first president of eBay. Now, he looks for ways that business can change the world for the better Jeff Skoll thinks -- and cares -- big. He caught the entrepreneurial bug long before 1995, the year he earned his MBA at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and became the first president of eBay, the online-auction site. This was after he had already launched two of his own computer consulting and rental businesses. A seri...

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BusinessWeek

Laptops for Kids With No Power, by Stephen Leahy

Though the first $100 laptop has yet to be built -- work is scheduled to begin in September -- the project’s three corporate partners, Advanced Micro Devices, Google and News Corporation, have each pledged $2 million apiece and tech expertise. The first 6 million laptops are to be manufactured in China starting in 2006, project representatives claim, and orders from the Chinese, Brazilian and other education departments are expected shortly. The machines are intended for governme...

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Wired News