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Eight Meters Squared: A Colombian startup aims to help small producers at the BoP
In Colombia, $2.8 billion in international aid money is currently being allocated for 2,560 projects. Of this amount, only three percent goes toward strengthening productivity and competition. As a result, many of these projects fail because they stop generating profits when their products don’t sell. Eight Meters Squared (8M2) seeks to change this by supporting vulnerable communities in marketing their products.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Why we must talk more about failure in social enterprise
Last year, in a live Q&A on planning for success and failure, some of the experts talked about using business failure as a valuable learning experience. One expert even said that in the US you're more likely to get finance if you have the knowledge of failure under your belt.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Village Capital: Lessons Learned from our First 15 Programs: And announcing our 16th and 17th
Village Capital operates accelerator programs worldwide for early-stage enterprises serving the BoP. In our three-month programs, groups of 10-20 entrepreneurs build world-changing innovations in education, health, financial services, energy, and more. In March, we’ll be wrapping up our 15th program, and we’d like to share a few of our key learnings about the seed-stage/accelerator space.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Special Series (Part 5): BPO for the BoP – The Path Towards Sustainability and Scale: Lessons on Expansion from a Mature Impact Sourcing Provider
In part five of our six-part series on Impact Sourcing, we highlight Digital Divide Data (DDD), an internationally acclaimed social enterprise that employs more than 1,100 people and operates in several countries, including Cambodia, Laos and Kenya. It recruits, trains and employs youth to perform BPO work, while also providing them financial support for higher education.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
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Resilience Meets Disaster Economics: Investing to stop disasters before they start can save lives and money
Global needs for crisis response are increasing. From drought in the Horn of Africa to battering storms in Haiti, natural disasters are becoming common and responding to them can be expensive. At the same time, donor funds are becoming scarce. This confluence of circumstances should drive a change in how the world funds crisis response.
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- Uncategorized
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Special Series (Part 4): BPO for the BoP – Work+Study=Job: Understanding of employment impact of a mid-stage Impact Sourcing Service Provider in Africa
As we continue to profile innovative Impact Sourcing Service Providers (ISSPs), this post focuses on Daproim Africa, a mid-stage firm based in Nairobi, Kenya. Daproim, which was has been in operation since 2006, is on a mission is to provide high- quality business process outsourcing services that are geared to providing jobs and ensuring a transformational impact.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
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$200,000 for BoP Health Care Innovators : A big opportunity for social enterprises
The USAID-funded Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project has announced the launch of the Health Enterprise Fund, a challenge fund designed to address the lack of available capital for health enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa. This support will include technical assistance and grant funding of up to $200,000. In this post, Colm Fay of the SHOPS project explains the fund and how to apply.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Weekly Roundup 1/19/13: A March conference focuses on Marketing to the BoP (A video Q&A with Hystra’s Kayser)
Olivier Kayser is the founder and managing director of Hystra, a for-profit firm that works with business and social sector innovators to design and implement hybrid strategies for businesses and NGOs working at the BoP. Hystra is releasing a new research paper “Marketing for the BoP," which will be the centerpiece of a March conference.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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