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

As the holiday season approaches and many emails begin to switch to holiday travel mode next week, I want to take a moment to let everyone know that at NextBillion the lights will continue to burn brightly. During the last week of December, we intend to run a series of posts that highlight milestones in the BoP space in 2010 and throughout the decade. So be sure to drop in to the site to participate in this conversation.

Weekly Roundup

While scanning the articles from the week past, the word access kept surfacing as a theme; access to finance, to transportation, to thought leaders, and to opportunities. On the finance side, both John Simon and Oscar Abello wrote about the recent hype surrounding impact investing (here and here); Tayo Akinyemi highlighted a potentially scale-able micro-franchise financing model; Sriram Gutta and wrote about banking for the BoP by highlighting challenges faced by the ultra poor; I (Kevin Keepper) wrote about the microfinance crisis in India; and Josh Weinstein wrote about carbon finance. On the transportation side, Heather Fleming wrote a unique post/interview on an innovative solution to Africa’s transportation dilemmas. Monica Touesnard and Scott Anderson gave us a key to insight on current thought leaders by cluing us into the BoP Short-Essay Competition and hosting a call with Ted London (respectively). And as for opportunity: Scott Anderson ran a great profile of GS10k women program, and Daniel González shed light on the shortcomings of inclusive business pledges.

What to look for in the weeks ahead:

• Are you going to be in London next week? Interested in using entrepreneurship and innovative business to support development in Africa? Then attend the Jan 22nd Launchpad Africa take-off event! For more on this event visit the registration page.
• The Aspen Institute’s First Movers Fellowship is acceting nominations. If you know any trailblazing social intrapreneur, a person creating programs and initiatives that serve the poor inside large corporations, please click here and learn more.
• The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management is accepting submissions for its 2010-2011 Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Short Essay Competition. This competition seeks to highlight the challenges of implementing business in underserved markets and identify innovative business initiatives or solutions to those challenges. For more information click here.
• There’s still time to register for Grassroots: Social Profit, a nationalconference, taking placeJan. 15, 2011 at BITS, Pilani – Goa Campus, Goa, India. Presented by Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership inassociation with the National Social Entrepreneurship Forum and powered by MentorEdge, the conference was initiated by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad.