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Are Businesses Without Benefactors Better?
Usually a hot startup bankrolled by eager investors doesn’t care much about its burn rate. In the case of Envirofit, though, that was the obsession from the beginning. The company sells cookstoves to "bottom of the pyramid" customers in India and the Philippines, and thanks to innovative engineering, they use less kerosene, burn hotter, and produce 80% less noxious fumes than the most commonly used models. So impressive is the technology that its inventor, engineer Bryan Willson, was hono...
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- South Asia
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India Inc feasts on charm
The much-awaited visit of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton got off to an early start in the commercial capital over breakfast with the doyens of India Inc. The chefs at the Taj Mahal Palace & Towers had prepared several delicacies for the power pow wow. The dishes remained untouched because there was too much food for thought. “Nobody ate breakfast. We were riveted by this charismatic lady in strawberry pink and ...
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- South Asia
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India’s Indigenous Genius: Jugaad
Etymology aside, I have always been convinced that the word indigenous arose from India. To make something out of limited resources is India’s genius and, therefore, indigenous. After centuries of foreign attacks, changing cultures and ever-evolving political stands, India has somehow managed to create an insular economy where we create what we need from what we have. In India, we call this jugaad and you can see a jugaad car on the highways of North India made from spare parts. Inn...
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- South Asia
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An Internet for Rural India
One intrepid entrepreneur battles brigands and bureaucrats to bring e-governance to India’s 700 million rural poor. By Malika Zouhali-Worrall BANGALORE (Fortune Small Business) -- It’s a sweltering day in May, the hottest time of year in the South Indian town of Sathanur. In the shade of a whitewashed storefront, a rugged, mustached man named Nagabhushana Achalu is filing his first application for a certificate that will hel...
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- South Asia
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Rural Markets Hold The Key…
On his extensive travels across rural India as founder of MART, a rural marketing and research consultancy, Pradeep Kashyap has seen several instances of the kind of micro level development prescribed by policy statements such as the Union Budget. Kashyap, whose organisation earlier this year had done a study which showed that rural demand for goods and services was alive and kicking despite the slowdown in urban India, says that the increased spend in the rural economy as envisaged by the 20...
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- South Asia
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’Poverty Pushes People Towards Entrepreneurship’
BANGALORE: More and more people are getting into an entrepreneurial mode and setting up their own businesses. This is not necessarily out of choice, but mostly because they do not really have many other options open to them. Speaking at a lecture on ’Economic Lives Of The Poor’, Prof. Abhijit Banerjee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said this diversification into business and entrepreneurship is not necessarily due to choices or lack of it, but because the poor do not have acc...
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- South Asia
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CK Prahalad: A unique combination of strategic vision and financial acumen
Renowned management thinker CK Prahalad has been watching Devi Shetty for the last six years now. Back then Narayana Hrudyalaya was still a relatively small facility. But even then Prahalad believed that the model held immense promise. “My job has always been to look at models that are different, models that are scalable. And it was clear to me, even at that time, while talking to him that this model is going to grow and he is going to be able to execute it because he is not only a ...
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- South Asia
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Rice Power: Cisco, DFJ Award Seed Money to Husk Power Systems
We first wrote about Husk Power Systems, a startup that turns rice husks into energy, back in November 2008. Now the startup, which already powers an entire small town in India, has beat out over 1,000 competitors to win the Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Cisco-sponsored Global Business Plan Competition. As a result, Husk will receive a $250,000 seed round. Husk Power Systems, founded in 2007 by University of Virginia business students Chip Ransler and Manoj Sinha, operates 35 kW to 100 kW...
- Region
- South Asia
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