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NextBillion at 20: Reflecting on Growth, Change and Global Impact
NextBillion is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, at a time of immense global change and uncertainty. But a few things haven’t changed: Entrepreneurship continues to be a key factor in solving the world’s most urgent challenges. Investments in emerging markets continue to catalyze innovation. And access to accurate sources of information remains essential to unlocking business growth and impact. In the coming weeks, NextBillion will be spotlighting guest articles that captured some of the key conversations and challenges that have shaped impact-focused business in emerging markets over the past two decades — and that continue to shape these sectors today. We're starting with agriculture: Check out these insights below.
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- Social Enterprise
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Press Release: Partnership Aims to Advance Clean Energy Innovation in Asia Pacific
Through this initiative, the University of Michigan and WDI will work collaboratively with ADB on a wide range of projects across the Asian region, including in clean energy and e-mobility, climate and health, water, food security, and biodiversity.
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- Energy, Technology, Transportation
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Building Smarter Data Practices in Entrepreneurship Support Ecosystems: How Entrepreneurs, Investors and Other Stakeholders Can Drive Systemic Change
Entrepreneurship support ecosystems include a diverse range of actors, from incubators and accelerators to policymakers, impact investors and other funders. But though strengthening these ecosystems is a growing priority in emerging markets, monitoring, evaluation and learning remains a persistent challenge, due in part to a lack of data sharing. Heather Esper at the William Davidson Institute and Keith Obade and Moses Waweru at Villgro Africa explore the reasons various stakeholders collect data, the obstacles that keep this data fragmented and underutilized, and the ways these ecosystems can improve their data practices.
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- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Disrupting Waste Management in Emerging Markets: Four Lessons for Strengthening Businesses While Empowering Women and Communities
Early-stage companies in emerging markets whose workforces and value chains are dependent on women face several common challenges. According to Yaquta Fatehi at the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan and John F. Akwetey, these issues are especially relevant in the waste management sector. They share insights from a study of waste management businesses and practices in Kenya, which show the impacts of treating women’s empowerment and community engagement as integral elements of business strategies rather than peripheral concerns.
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WDI Names Rajat Chabba Senior Director of Innovation, Partnerships
Our parent organization, the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI), has named Rajat Chabba as Senior Director of Innovation and Partnerships, a new position for the Institute.
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- Agriculture, Education, Energy, Environment, Finance, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology, Transportation
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- Global
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The Gender Aspect of the E-Mobility Transition: An Innovative Collaboration in Kenya Highlights New Ways to Bring Women into the Sector
The transition to electric mobility (e-mobility) represents a massive shift for consumers, businesses and other stakeholders. But as Dana Gorodetsky at the William Davidson Institute argues, it also creates an opportunity to engage women as electric vehicle (EV) entrepreneurs, designers, producers and drivers — and to design mobility solutions with women's needs in mind. She explores how Kenya is leading the way in ensuring a just and inclusive e-mobility transition, highlighting two companies that are working to boost women’s involvement in the EV value chain.
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- Energy, Environment, Transportation
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The Implications of Global Health Equity: Why Pursuing Equity May Actually Harm the Poor
The concept of global health equity has gained traction in universities, governments, global health organizations and even some businesses. But Paul Clyde at the William Davidson Institute argues that it's important to think carefully about the implications of this goal before pursuing it. He explains how improvements to healthcare in poor populations often begin with improvements in wealthier populations, and how actions taken or discouraged in the name of equity can do more harm than good in poor communities.
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- Health Care
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Lean Thinking isn’t Just for Large Manufacturing Businesses: A Roadmap for Applying it to Small and Medium Enterprises
Toyota developed lean thinking — a rigorous, data-centric approach that aims to optimize business processes by empowering staff to identify and solve problems — in the 1950s. But as Yaquta Fatehi and Heather Esper at the William Davidson Institute explain, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly using lean methodologies to reduce costs, increase efficiency and boost customer satisfaction and profits. They define key concepts and standard practices in lean thinking, and propose a roadmap for applying these approaches to SMEs' operations.
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- Uncategorized
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