NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monika Bloching

Guest Post: Setting Up an Export Business (Or Folding a T-Shirt) Without Wrinkles: Brazil’s Maos de Minas helps artisans connect to global market

Maos de Minas (“the hands of Minas”) promotes the artisan sector and preserves the cultural identity of the region Minas Gerais, the fourth largest of the 26 states of Brazil. Some 500,000 of the state’s approximately 20 million inhabitants are artisans, and about 7,000 of them are active members of Maos de Minas. Our project with the Maos de Minas organization is part of the SAP Social Sabbatical program.

Categories

Education

Tags

business development, creative economy, skill development, supply chains

Hector Jorquera

VOZ: From Chile, Bringing ‘Triple E’ Fashion and Connecting BoP Artisans With Luxury Markets

I am grateful that this young product designer, who graduated from Stanford, trained in innovation, cultural anthropology and art, has chosen the Araucanía Region of Chile to launch VOZ (Voice), a start-up that seeks to promote fair trade in luxury ethnic fashion, based on collaborative, environmentally-friendly design and production methods.

Categories

Social Enterprise

Tags

creative economy, rural development

Rob Katz

Artisans and Open Source: PeopLink and CatGen

PEOPlink is a non-profit organization that trains and equips grassroots artisan organizations all over the world to market their goods directly to customers over the Internet ? thereby minimizing the impact of middlemen and maximizing return to the artisan. CatGen is a related open-source...

Categories

Education

Tags

academia, creative economy

Rural artisans and SSI better, proves Bangladesh

Can farm mechanisation lead to greater employment generation and poverty alleviation? The answer is ?yes?, provided the mechanisation is on a small-scale and equipment are manufactured by rural artisans and small-scale industry. A case in point is Bangladesh, which has been experimenting with this concept for sometime now (...) Bangladesh, Dr Kabir said, had gone for small-scale farm mechanisation, wherein tillage operations are mechanised and most of the farm equipment are manufacture...

Source

Oneworld South Asia (link opens in a new window)

Tags

creative economy