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NexThought Monday: Coming 2011, An India Without Corruption?
India is in uproar: a broad citizen movement lead by charismatic Anna Hazare pushes for strong anti-corruption measures. As shop-keepers post support messages and business school students skip meals, the country wonders: Will the measures, called ?Lokpal," pass? And will the curb the addiction of the country?s civil servants to quick money?
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Greenway Smart Stove: A Cleaner Smarter Stove for 150 Million BoP Households
Newly minted MBA graduates in their mid-20’s, especially from top-tier business schools, are supposed to be working at a multi-national bank or maybe a Hindustan Lever, right? Not if you are Neha Juneja and Ankit Mathur who decided to take the less beaten path of social entrepreneurship by founding Greenway Grameen Infrastructure. Zeroing in on the stove Their journey started innocuously enough. A series of consulting gigs in the environment domain gave Neha a...
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Serving the Trillion Dollar BoP Energy Market
Not everyone wants to spend their weekend in a conference room discussing challenges like benchmarking low-cost solar home lighting systems, finding the right business model, and raising the seed capital. But for the 11 social entrepreneurs gathered with experts and the CSTS Clean Energy Sector team, there’s no place else we would have rather been.
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- Energy, Environment
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InVest in a Small Business, See Your Impact – In Real Time
InVenture, founded by former financial analyst Shivani Siroya, melds the P2P website model - one of the founding pillars of Kiva- with investing in SMEs in the developing world. You can go on the InVenture site and invest as little as $25 in an SME in the developing world and receive constant updates on your business’ progress and social impact.
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Progress and Promises: Exploring the BoP with Monitor Inclusive Markets
In May, Monitor Inclusive Markets released a report on market-based solutions in Africa across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Profiling 440 enterprises, "Progress and Promises" represents the largest study to date of social enterprises in Africa. It grew out of a simple observation: the aid model is broken. But what’s the alternative?
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From the Field: The Livestock Sector
Despite the clear value that livestock offers BoP farmers and producers offer, in Kenya it’s clear there many areas of the sector still could be enhanced. This includes moving toward decentralizing the animal health system, providing insurance to producers and educating livestock producers, all of which present opportunities for BoP ventures.
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- Agriculture
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Guest Post: Why My Classroom is a Startup
I have always dreamt of starting my own chain of low cost affordable schools.That dream motivated me to join the Teach For India Fellowship. My small classroom was without the basic necessities. So my 27 students and I are learning the basics of sustainable business. For me, the students are not only the product, but also the customer.
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- Education
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Beyond BASE: The Needs Are Here Now, So Are the Markets
The Inter-American Development Bank’s Opportunities for the Majority Initiative recently held its first international event on Business at the Base of the Pyramid. BoP "thought" history was made as business leaders from across Latin America mixed with NGOs, think tanks, consulting firms and other players. Here just a few themes that emerged.
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- Impact Assessment