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Kenya’s CNN ‘hero’: Africa’s high growth rates not felt at bottom of the pyramid
Evans Wadongo shot to international fame after he was named one of the top ten CNN Heroes in 2010. His project replaces kerosene lamps with solar-powered LED lanterns across villages in rural Kenya. CNN Heroes honours everyday people changing the world. Born in rural Kenya, the 26-year-old electronic and computer engineering graduate is the executive director of Sustainable Development for All Kenya (SDFA-Kenya) where he literally lights up people’s lives. How we made it in Africa’s East Africa correspondent Dinfin Mulupi chats with Wadongo to find out what makes this social entrepreneur tick.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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NextThought Monday: Helping the BoP Design its Own Way Out of Poverty
Daniel Altman is an economist, writer and teacher with a deep commitment to international development. He’s had a revelation about the power of consumer products to create markets from the inside out, and he’s doing something about it.
Emerging Design Centers (EDCs) is a for-profit enterprise that puts cutting-edge design tools in the hands of the poor.- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Weekly Roundup: The Fatal Flaw @ the BoP?: Readers: Have a Question for Erik Simanis? Ask Away
Erik Simanis has been generating significant buzz with two essays published in the Harvard Business Review: Businesses Serving the Poor Need to Get Over Their Unease About Profit and Reality Check at the Bottom of the Pyramid. In the latter, Simanis says BoP practice has a fatal flaw. I’m planning to speak with Simanis soon, so if you have question let me know
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- Uncategorized
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Fighting for the next billion shoppers
A TRIP to Paris is not usually a miserable way to celebrate your birthday, but so it was this year for Bob McDonald. On June 20th, as he turned 59, the chief executive of Procter & Gamble (P&G) for the past three years gave a faltering and apologetic speech at a conference there hosted by Deutsche Bank, in which he predicted lower-than-expected profits in the coming quarter for the world’s largest maker of household and personal-care products, and confessed to deep-seated problems at his firm both in innovation and the broader execution of its strategy.
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One billion smartphones by 2014. Bottom-of-the-pyramid market never looked better
It’s been a while since bottom of the pyramid — famously enunciated by the late management guru C.K. Prahlad — has been perceived to be an attractive market.
- Categories
- Technology
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At Rio+20: Will the Realities and the Possibilities for BoP Housing Truly Be Addressed?
There is a vital need to embrace concepts that incorporate the needs of all stakeholders (particularly harnessing the voices of the BoP themselves) via housing models that can handle market immaturities whilst building both at the necessary scale and to globally recognized quality standards. Let´s discard with the concepts that only focus on the short- to medium-term and examine how it is genuinely possible to tackle the complexities of the sector.
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- Uncategorized
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NexThought Monday: On the Eve of Rio+20, Creating a Lasting Cookstove Market
The Global Village Energy Partnership works with a group of 400 entrepreneurs to promote clean cookstoves in East Africa. Last year, these entrepreneurs sold more than 275,000 improved cookstoves, indicating that people have accepted the value of more efficient cookstoves, and that they provide a market opportunity for creating a sustainable business model.
- Categories
- Environment
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G20 Announces Winners of the IFC-Managed G20 Challenge on Inclusive Business Innovation
Los Cabos, Mexico, June 18, 2012—The Group of 20 today announced the winners of the G20 Challenge on Inclusive Business Innovation, a global competition managed by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group. Ambassador Rogelio Granguillhome, Executive Secretary of the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation and Chair of the G20 Development Working Group, presented the awards at a ceremony here.
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- Uncategorized