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Diamond Cab Picks Up Hong Kong’s Fledgling Social Entrepreneurship Scene
Social entrepreneurship is a relatively new phenomenon in Hong Kong--and one venture philanthropy startup, Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk) , has been at the forefront of the movement, with several investees under its portfolio focused on the elderly and disabled. The group’s newest project, Diamond Cab , officially launches next week. "Diamond Cab is the first branded, high-quality taxi servic...
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- Agriculture
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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China’s Top Social Innovators to Watch in 2011
By Calvin Chin I firmly believe that China will be a leader in social innovation. But while there is a tremendous amount of dynamism and energy in this newly emerging sector, ...
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- Asia Pacific
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Can P&G make money in places where people earn $2 a day?
Despite the growing belief that the billions of poor -- what the late management thinker C.K. Prahalad termed the "bottom of the pyramid" -- can actually make up a viable economic market, most attempts to harness it have failed. Procter & Gamble ( PG ), a $79 billion (in sales) company better known for its middle- and upper-middle-class brands than for its low-end offerings, thinks there’s another way to re...
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- Asia Pacific
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Harvard Business Review on Reaching India?s ?Vast Middle?
The meltdown of the microfinance industry in Andhra Pradesh, as we have noted carries big risks not just for an industry designed to serve the poor but for the entire concept that the poor can be profitable customers. That has been an emerging trend in management thinking about emerging markets in the last few years, in part because of the success of microfinance. But since these matte...
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- Asia Pacific
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Facebook for Farmers: Technology Empowers China’s Rural Workers
China Mobile’s Nongxintong - or farming information service - launched four years ago. The company is currently focusing on expanding its delivery in China’s west and south-west regions. "Building the mobile network and covering most of the country’s administrative villages, we realised that there was only a network signal. In rural areas, this is not enough," explains Liu Jing, a local manager for the service at China Mobile. "It’s like havi...
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- Asia Pacific
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Unilever Eyes Top and Bottom-end Segments in Developing Markets
SINGAPORE : Consumer goods giant Unilever wants to straddle both the top and the bottom of the economic pyramid in developing markets. This is part of its strategy to tap Asia’s growth potential, and compensate for the slack in its European and North America units. And to support this growth, Unilever has been making invest...
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- Asia Pacific
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Social Entrepreneurs Boost Cooperation to Reduce Poverty in Asia
Innovative thinkers working for social change converged in Seoul, Monday, in a bid to boost cooperation towards alleviating poverty and other problems in Asia. Some 300 agents of change known as social entrepreneurs - those who apply fresh paradigms to solve pressing human issues - gathered in southern Seoul for the second major gathering of the Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit. On the first of two days of dialogue at the Kyoyuk Munwha Hoekwan Hotel, tackling pove...
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- Asia Pacific
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Rural Banks’ Service in the Philippines
Rural banks do the nation a great service that people in the cities seldom give a thought to. They serve a market segment big banks don’t want to be bothered with. The money of the farmers, rural businesses and agricultural and fishery entrepreneurs that make up that market segment is too small-and therefore too expensive-for the large commercial banks to attend to. Indivi...
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- Asia Pacific