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When talking with people inside the “base of the pyramid” (BoP) community, I often hear strong opinions about how BoP ventures should be set up.? Some people strongly support registering these ventures as for-profit entities, while others maintain that BoP activities can start out as...
For-Profit, Non-Profit or Both: The Funding GapNews
More low-cost laptops are headed to a retailer near you. Intel plans on expanding the distribution of its inexpensive, school children-friendly Classmate PC to U.S. and European retail outlets, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday. The Classmate will sell for $250 to $350, Lila Ibrahim, general manager of Intel’s emerging market platform group, told Reuters. Apparently Intel has already been conducting pilot programs using the devices in classrooms in ...
Classmate PC Coming to U.S., European RetailersNews
The mantra from businesses and politicians in the developed world is that technology will provide a solution to rising global emissions. Indeed, they say, fighting global warming can be good for business. General Electric has rightly staked a claim to be an environmental leader by selling wind turbines. Wal-Mart is going green by asking its suppliers to evaluate their emissions as they manufacture Wal-Mart products. Trading in carbon emissions can certainly be profitable: In a month o...
Poor are Sidelined on ClimateNews
Christian Seelos, director of the platform for strategy and and sustainability at IESE business school, is winner of an essay competition sponsored by the Financial Times and the International Finance Corporation on the private sector’s role in development. This is his essay: Abstract Recent research on business models that target the ?Bottom of the Pyramid’ (BOP), the vast untapped potential market made up of the world’s poorest peo...
Company Lessons in Reaching the World?s PoorestNews
No s?lo el cart?n y el papel son reciclables. Eso lo saben bien los cartoneros, que acceden a la telefon?a celular a trav?s de aparatos reciclados con una financiaci?n especial que les permite usar un servicio que de otro modo les resultar?a inaccesible. Ellos son parte del 70% de la poblaci?n de Am?rica Latina que gana menos de u$s3.000 por a?o, es decir no m?s de u$s8,2 por d?a, pero que a?n as? son consumidores activos y esperan acceder a bienes y servicios como cualquier otro se...
Como Hacer Buenos Negocios con Consumidores con Bajos RecursosNews
The price of food is soaring. The threat of hunger and malnutrition is growing. Millions of the world’s most vulnerable people are at risk. An effective and urgent response is needed. The first of the Millennium Development Goals, set by world leaders at the U.N. summit in 2000, aims to reduce the proportion of hungry people by half by 201...
The New Face Of HungerBlog Post
I ran across this Fair and Lovely ad on YouTube recently. For those who don’t know, this product is a skin-lightening cream that was at the center of a debate last year over the value and impact of a BoP approach to poverty alleviation. The ad is in Hindi, but the message is clear:...
Ethics in the BoP MarketplaceNews
Making loans and fighting poverty are normally two of the least glamorous pursuits around, but put the two together and you have an economic innovation that has become not just popular but downright chic. The innovation???microfinance???involves making small loans to poor entrepreneurs, usually in developing countries. It has been around since the nineteen-seventies, but in the past few years it has seized the imaginations of economists, activists, and bankers alike. The U.N. declared 2005 th...
What Microloans Miss
