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With Few Resources, Cuba’s Resourceful Entrepreneurs Find a Way
There are some 500,000 entrepreneurs today in Cuba, up from 150,000 in 2010. President Raúl Castro has called the huge state sector “bloated” and has declared private business a key part of Cuba’s new economic model. In May, the communist government passed legislation allowing small businesses to become legal entities, thus making the private sector official. Previously, entrepreneurs were classified as “self-employed.” But when we visited there in May we found that, despite resource constraints, entrepreneurship is booming in Cuba.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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5 Trends Accelerating the Acceptance of STEM Professionals in Sustainable Development
STEM innovation has led to many of the biggest social impacts in recent human history: chlorinated drinking water, oral re-hydration therapy, solar energy, and many more that we often overlook or underestimate. Fortunately, as STEM professionals forge their way in the social innovation space, there are five major trends accelerating their acceptance as sustainable development practitioners.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Inclusive Business Partnerships: Distracting Dead End or Sustainable Solution?
If anything has been proven in the past decade of inclusive business, it's that “go it alone” doesn't work. The enterprises that are going to scale have partners. The other inescapable facts are that partnering is hard and some partnerships don't work. The problem is perhaps that partnering is assumed to be something that just happens and anyone can do it.
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- Uncategorized
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AIG to Sell Crowdfunding Insurance, Looking to Make Money Off Investors’ Worries
American International Group is giving crowdfunding a try. Not to raise money for startups, but to profit off investors’ concerns about being ripped off as they invest in small businesses through this new type of funding.
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- Investing
- Region
- North America
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Impact investing fund for students launched in Nigeria
Venture Kinetics, led by Jobberman founder Opeyemi Awoyemi, and Passion Incubator have partnered the launch the FastForward Student Innovation Fund, an impact investing fund focused on innovations of students or recent graduates of Nigerian universities.
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- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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An Ecosystem Approach for Building Affordable, Climate Resilient Housing
Indonesia has seen some of the worst natural calamities in recent times, and its demand for houses exceeds an estimated 1 million, with a supply between 300,000 - 400,000 annually. This highlights a business opportunity for private firms in the country’s affordable housing sector. As a part of the Rockefeller Foundation Technical Assistance Facility, Intellecap worked with Lafarge in Medan and Aceh, Indonesia to create a climate-resilient housing product model that is sustainable and caters to the urban poor.
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- Environment
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Three ‘Golden Rules’ of Investing in Health-Focused BoP Models
With an estimated $140 billion needed per year to finance the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, the role of private sector finance is more critical than ever. Dalberg, after exploring the topic from a variety of angles and analyzing successes, synthesized three golden rules of investing in health-focused BoP models to help guide businesses, investors and start-ups.
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- Health Care
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Weekly Roundup: The (Possible) Impact of President Trump or Sanders on Emerging Economies
We avoid politics on NextBillion, but in ways that truly matter to our readers, this U.S. presidential campaign has invaded our territory. Many observers in recent weeks are taking a hard look at what a Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders presidency would mean for emerging economies. In this post, we examine some of the possible repercussions of two key policies advocated by the candidates.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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