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Weekly Roundup – 10/26/13: Guiding the “invisible hand” of the Base of the Pyramid market
Sometimes the invisible hand of the market needs, well, a helping hand. Consider the cases of Honey Care Africa, General Electric, and Coca Cola as they attempt establish new markets at the BoP. Each mini-case was reflected by company representatives during this week’s BoP Summit.
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- Agriculture
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Day 3 at the BoP Summit: The investment community’s 2 cents, the roadmap work begins
Wednesday was the final day of WDI’s “BoP Summit 2013: Creating an Action Agenda for the Next Decade,” but it also was the first step towards advancing business models and funding mechanisms for the base of the pyramid.
These first steps came at the end of the three-day conference as nine working groups began piecing together a roadmap to chart the future course of the base of the pyramid (BoP) domain.- Categories
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Day 2 at the BoP Summit: Urgent, but practical, action
On Day Two, attendees of the BoP Summit took a more functional role – brainstorming solutions to the challenges facing BoP ventures today and starting to map the future path of this vital field that aims to lift people out of poverty.
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Day 1 at the BoP Summit: Why BoP business practices need to move to 2.0
At the end of day one of the “BoP Summit 2013: Creating an Action Agenda for the Next Decade,” WDI Senior Research Fellow and conference organizer Ted London had a question for the participants: What will our legacy be?
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Lighting the path of profitability for base-of-the-pyramid enterprises
It’s every small business’s dream to be profiled not only by mainstream media flagships like the New York Times and The Economist but also trendsetting outlets like “The Colbert Report” and Fast Company. And by this measure of media attention, d.light design, provider of solar light and power products for the developing world, is a resounding success. But as any enterprise knows, generating buzz about your product is not the same as having customers actually buy it. d.light represents that most ambitious of social enterprises: One that aims to turn a profit while solving a social problem. Dubbed “hybrid” organizations by Harvard Business School professor Julie Battilana, these businesses differ from other social enterprises, who often rely on grant-based funding, rather than revenue, to sustain operations.
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- Energy
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- Base of the Pyramid, solar
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A Social Entrepreneur’s Inspiration For Solar-Powered Lighting
Solar-powered light bulbs for the poor: A growing number of social enterprises are selling such technology to bottom of the pyramid households in Africa, India and other countries. One of the first to do so, Denver-based Nokero (for No Kerosene) just introduced its next generation of products, as it works to make the company’s management more professional–and able to grow the enterprise even more.A little more background on the issue: Around 1.3 billion of world’s population lacks access to reliable electricity. Most of them use kerosene lamps, which are very very very expensive compared to incandescent lamps, (people spend as much as 30% of their income on kerosene-based fuels, according to Nokero), cause deadly fires (If you live without electricity, you’re seven times more likely to die by fire than someone with electricity, according to Katsaros), and contribute to air pollution. They don’t produce a whole heck of a lot of light, either
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- Energy
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NexThought Monday: Our Top 5 Tips for BoP Marketing: What are yours?
Inspired by discussions at the Hystra’s Marketing Innovative Devices to the Base of Pyramid as well as our own extensive experience in marketing life-changing products to the BoP, here at Living Goods, we thought it was high-time we shared our Top 5 Tips for BoP Marketing. Like any good list, we hope it sparks a vibrant discussion...
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FEATURED EVENT: The BoP Global Network Summit 2013
Join the first BoP Global Network Summit and learn more about the practices that are revolutionizing the world economy and changing the lives of thousands in BoP communities around the world. The summit takes place Nov. 7-8 at the Natura Convention Center, Cajamar - São Paulo, Brazil.
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