Scott Anderson

Introducing Our New Video Partner, ViewChange.org

By the time you finish reading this post (about 4 minutes from now), more than 96 hours (!) of new video content will be uploaded to YouTube. That’s right. 24 hours, a full day and night of errands, eating and sleeping are uploaded every single minute.

Now when it comes to compelling videos that are valuable to the NextBillion audience, we just know it when we see it. But even with a friendly links from our readers, a trusted blog or the occasional Twitter tip, it takes an awful lot of time to find relevant video content about development through enterprise.

Today, we start to remedy this quandary. We’re happy to announce that we’re teaming up with ViewChange.org, a new multimedia site that brings gripping stories from the developing world, while connecting viewers related video, development news and other features. Launched in November by independent satellite network Link TV, and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ViewChange produces and/or purchases the rights for numerous features and short documentaries from the field on issues ranging from microfinance, agriculture, safe water, healthcare and education for the poor.

As a first example of the types of content you’ll find on ViewChange, check out “Dorah’s Story,” a short film about Dorah Nyanja, who manages a micro-franchise clinic in the Kibera slum of Nairobi.

Impressive right? The more we searched and watched several of the 300 videos on ViewChange, the more we discovered they care about many of the same things what we care about at NextBillion. A content-sharing partnership just made good sense.

With this announcement, we’ll begin hosting the first of several ViewChange videos focused on the entrepreneurs, corporations, NGOs and thought leaders who are driving the Base of the Pyramid idea forward.

“We all know that stories are powerful and they can be a tremendous help to organizations that need to define their work for policymakers or explain the needs they are trying to address,” said Wendy Hanamura, VP & General Manager at LinkTV. “But we also know that NGOs and aid organizations don’t always have the resources to make those stories on their own. Through this partnership, we hope that thousands of organizations will gain access to video stories that will help them communicate their goals to the development community.”

What you can expect from this partnership

We plan to feature a new “Video of the Week”, on NextBillion, for the next several months. We’ll also be connecting with several of the filmmakers behind these stories and write about their perspectives behind the lens. Naturally, we’ll focus only on the videos that relate strictly to the idea of development through enterprise. In the meantime, we encourage you to check out some of the 140 films submitted for the ViewChange film contest with the theme of achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

We hope the ViewChange videos will be weekly sources of education, instruction and inspiration for the NextBillion community.

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