NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Results

• News
  HUL to take water purifiers to villages

  The country?s largest consumer products company by turnover, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, or HUL, plans to launch Pureit, its water purifier brand, in rural markets by year-end, targeted at relatively well-off village households that are able to afford its recurring cost. Pureit, which marked the company?s entry into the consumer durables business, was introduced in 2005 in Chennai and then in other southern markets before its national launch early this year. Once the roll-out o...

• Blog Post
  The Missing Middle

  Every few weeks, members of the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN) converge in the San Francisco Bay Area to learn about microfinance, microcredit, and related finance and economic topics. The last session, Fueling the Growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES), was led and hosted by...

• News
  Pop!Tech Launches Social Innovation Fellows Program

  Pop!Tech (www.poptech.org), the renowned annual ideas summit and social innovation network, today unveiled the 2008 Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellows: a corps of high-potential change agents incubating breakthrough ? or ?big bet? ? approaches to the world?s most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges. Each Fellow is working on a transformative solution to a critical global challenge, in categories such as sustainable energy, human rights, education, economic developme...

• Blog Post
  When Being “Disruptive” is a Good Thing (Part 1)

  Editor’s note: The posts in the "When Being Disruptive is a Good Thing" series were originally published as Guest Posts by Mark Beckford, before he joined NextBillion.net’s team as Staff Writer.Someone or something that is disruptive is usually associated in the negative....

• News
  Strong partnership key to success in bottom of the pyramid markets

  For those at the ?bottom of the pyramid? (BoP), the four billion people or so living on less than two dollars a day, life is hard. Although collectively they have considerable combined purchasing power, they have up to now been traditionally overlooked by businesses. However, major multinational corporations (MNCs) are now seeing opportunities in developing products for the BoP markets, while making a difference to the lives of the poor people. ?For this concept to work, there needs...

• News
  Agflation helps poor, says study

  Studies conducted by economists at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) have deduced that rising global food prices can actually help improve the conditions of the majority of the poor and alleviate poverty in the country. Ms Sandra Polaski, senior associate and director at the CEIP pointed out that analysis of data collected through surveys by the Indian government of over 2.5 lakh poor families had shown striking correlation between increasing global food prices and...

• Blog Post
  Sustainability for ICT Offerings

  A recent report, “Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use,” by the United Nations Foundation and The Vodafone Group Foundation highlights emerging trends by NGOs in the use of mobile technology to affect social change in global public health, humanitarian...

• Blog Post
  Barefoot Optometry for the Base of the Pyramid: The VisionSpring Interview

  Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with Jordan Kassalow, Graham Macmillan and Miriam Stone ? three staff members at VisionSpring ? to conduct a long-form interview. Formerly known as Scojo Foundation, VisionSpring is the pioneering base of the pyramid-focused enterprise working...