NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Give Keynote Address at Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship

OXFORD, England, March 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Skoll World Forum is the leading international platform for accelerating entrepreneurial approaches and innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social issues. The theme for the 2011 Forum is ’Large Scale Change - ecosystems, networks and collaborative action.’ The programme covers a wide variety of complex global issues such as water, energy, food security, climate change, peace and security, social equity and eme...

Source

Sys-Con Media (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Education

Region

Europe & Eurasia

American Expat Helps Hong Kong Startups Find Footing

The Hong Kong social enterprise scene is just getting going --and so is the startup movement. A cofounder of StartupsHK and BootHK , Jonathan Buford, tells Fast Company that it all comes down to one word: community . With the lure of the safety and comforts that come with a hi...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Bridges Fund Tops ?11.75m with JP Morgan Investment

A fund for social entrepreneurs run by Bridges Venture has topped £11.75m following a £2.75m investment from JP Morgan. The sustainable growth investor’s Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund opened in 2009 to address the funding gap faced by fast-growing social enterprises. Its first £9m was funded by the Office for Civil Society, Nesta, R&S Cohen Foundation, Deutsche Bank, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and others. The Bridges Ventures team has also alloca...

Source

Socialenterpriselive.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Local ?Bridge-Maker? Turns Up at Davos

Shawn Ahmed is tweeting gleefully about the white all-access badge he’s been handed at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where politicians and CEOs are meeting this week to try to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. The 29-year-old Canadian landed a coveted seat representing the YouTube community after winning an international online competition called the Davos Debates. It’s a coup for a guy from Richmond Hill who ditched a graduat...

Source

thestar.com (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Uncategorized

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Tags

impact investing

Better Vision for the World, on a Budget

EGHEL, the Netherlands — With AIDS , ...

Source

New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Re-emerging Poor a Target for Some Retailers

BELGRADE (Reuters) - As recession squeezes the fledgling middle classes of emerging economies, special shops for the poor are seizing the opportunities. Slovenia and Serbia are among countries opening "SOS" shops that allow custom only from those officially registered as poor, who need special cards to access them. "We see this effort as a new retail concept," Trade Minister Slobodan Milosavljevic said at a ceremony in March to open the first SOS shop, a whitewashed old house with...

Source

Reuters (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Travel-Blogue Day 6: Muhammad Yunus? Next Big Thing

The way Noble Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus sees it, the micro-credit revolution is running its course in his home country of Bangladesh. Between his Grameen Bank and other NGOs, which together make Bangladesh the most heavily micro-credit-enabled place on earth, he estimates that about 80% of the poor families that might want to participate are being served already. His goal is for Grameen to help finish the job by 2012. What’s next? Health care. This is the biggest ...

Source

Business Week Blog (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Migrant workers sending money home has become the biggest source of foreign income in some poor European countries, the World Bank has said. In a report on European and Central Asian (ECA) nations, the bank said that remittances sometimes beat foreign investment aid and exports in size. Officially recorded payments in the region - which includes former Soviet states - were over $19bn (?9.67bn). The largest amount of remittances, as a share of GDP, were sent to...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia