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

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• Blog Post
  Guest Post: Lord Brown and “Making Private Capital Work for the Poor”

  Guest blogger Chaz Littlejohn is the Director of Finance for Nourish International UNC Chapter, and is finishing his last semester at the University of North Carolina in the Economics program. At Nourish International, Chaz has applied his economics training to analyzing and improving how...

• News
  Social entrepreneurship: When Go-Negosyo Went Flat

  FOR THOSE of you who?ve retired from employment, and plan to start a business and at the same time ensure handsome points in the pearly gates of heaven, I have two words for you?social entrepreneurship. Basically, it means the application of entrepreneurship principles to create, manage, and operate a business directed at solving a social problem, like poverty for instance. Unlike traditional businesses, the key result area of social entrepreneurship is not profitability,...

• News
  Little Enthusiasm Over Anti-Poverty Campaign

  The enthusiasm among social groups in Mexico and Central America for the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP)is not reflected by the general public, which has displayed scant interest in this week’s event. In Mesoamerica, made up of Mexico and the countries of Central America, there will be street demonstrations, academic and student forums, and a variety of cultural activities. However, large crowds are not expected to gather, as they regularly do for political rallies a...

• Blog Post
  Hard Questions for Microfinance: How Much Profit is Too Much Profit?

  Microcredit is generally considered a step forward in the war against poverty. Giving small loans to impoverished people helps transform lives ? read the annual report of any MFI for details. While I am a firm believer that microfinance is a good thing, does it remain “good” when...

• News
  Microfinance to the Rescue of the People at the Bottom

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• News
  IBM Partners with Grameen Foundation to Expand Its Open Source Microfinance Banking Platform And Hel

  IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Grameen Foundation today announced a collaborative project to help microfinance institutions (MFIs) better serve poor communities around the world by expanding Mifos, Grameen Foundation’s ground-breaking open source microfinance software platform. The project will build additional functionality and robustness into the Mifos application and give MFIs around the world access to new, world-class software that streamlines the lending process and significantly reduces operatio...

• News
  Wheels of Misfortune

  Small cars have had it good for quite a while, but the market could undergo a drastic transformation with the advent of ultra-cheap, small cars led by the Tatas’ Rs 1 lakh model. The Tata car, the stuff of dreams millions of potential vehicle owners haven’t yet dared to dream, is slated to roll out of its factory in Singur, West Bengal, in 2008. The state government has done everything in its powers to facilitate the project, from land acquisition to fiscal breaks. At t...

• Blog Post
  Microsoft: Enabling Social and Economic Development in Digital Age

  Yesterday, I attended “Unlimited Potential: Connecting the Next Five Billion,” a presentation organized by SID-Washington’s Corporate Responsibility Workgroup, USAID’s Global Development Alliance, DAI and Georgetown University’s Mortara Center for International Studies....