Things are generally slower in August, as many folks take vacation and less gets done by those who are at the office. (For a refreshing and innovative take on this phenomenon, you might consider Seth Godin's advice to work like your hair is on fire while the competition sleeps.) For the rest of us, this means there's less content than normal floating around the base of the pyramid blogosphere. Despite this, here's a quick roundup of worthy reports and posts: The GSM Association commissioned a report summarizing the findings of 20 top research papers. It might sound like a glorified literature review, but it's worth your time. This is really the first report to put together, in one place, research on the economic and social impact of mobile phones in developing...
This post is the second in a two part series on how to get involved in the base of the pyramid movement. Part 1 was a personal story of involvement, and Part 2 focuses on the role of students in bringing social transformation.I recently attended the Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN) colloquium at Harvard Business School and had a conversation with a professor about the role of students in BoP ventures. He left me with this parting insight: "Don't forget - students change the world. Many social movements throughout history have been started and led by students."It wasn't a surprise for me to hear this at the SEKN colloquium. One of the main objectives of SEKN is to empower business school professors with knowledge, research, and insights on social enterprises...
If you're in the market for a job in the base-of-the-pyramid space, you might want to check out the five current job openings listed on Acumen Fund's web site. There are two openings in India, one for a Business Development Manager and the other for a Portfolio Associate. Both are accepting applications and hope to close the application period early next week (August 20). View both job descriptions in PDF format, and consider applying. The Acumen Fund Pakistan office also has an opening, this time for a Business Manager. Apply by September 10. Finally, here in New York, we're recruiting a Senior Accountant and a Talent Intern. Neither has a set application deadline, but the sooner you submit information, the better. As always, if you know someone qualified for...
The Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN) brings together a number of Latin America academic institutions interested in exploring the concept of social enterprise and market-based solutions to poverty. Last week the network convened for a research colloquium in Harvard Business School to share the major findings of their upcoming publication titled Inclusive Business in Iberoamerica: Challenges and Opportunities. It was an interesting venue in which I had the opportunity to learn about thriving BoP business models in Latin America like Cruzsalud in Venezuela, which is bringing high-quality healthcare services to the poor of Caracas. It was also exciting to meet and talk to very interesting people like Nancy Barry and Michael Chu, surely two of the most influential characters of the...
If you have between 2 and 5 years of professional experience, a strong interest in social enterprise/ venture philanthropy and a desire to spend 10 months working for organizations in Latin America, Africa or Asia, please read on. The LGT Group is the asset management group of the Princely House of Liechtenstein. Each year, the Group's philanthropy arm conducts a call for applications to its fellowship program, through which engages professionals with social enterprises in developing countries, seeking to go beyond financial support and offer their portfolio organizations access to increased intellectual and social capital. This year's program features organizations working in an interesting array of disciplines in Brazil, Colombia, South Africa and Tanzania. The deadline for...
Guest blogger Lauren Withey is a research analyst working on the World Resources Report at the World Resources Institute. She is a contributing writer to the newly-released World Resources 2008 - Roots of Resilience: Growing the Wealth of the Poor.By Lauren WitheySofia Begum never imagined that she would be running her own poultry business. In 2000, the former housewife from northern Bangladesh was struggling to make ends meet for her family. She and her husband, a fisherman, were too poor to send their children to school. Like most of the families around them, the couple relied heavily on the local wetland to provide the protein and income necessary to sustain their daily lives. But degradation to the wetland from agricultural pollution, sediment from deforestation upstream, and...
What defines a Base of the Pyramid (BoP) business? Here at NextBillion.net, our goal is to identify and discuss sustainable business models that address the needs of the BoP. We have had many debates about the size, total income and expenditure of this group. NextBillion is currently hosting some debate about what development means. At the same time, we've been thinking about the role and importance of BoP businesses within the development community thanks to Michael Edwards' criticism of 'philanthrocapitalism'. But what exactly do we mean about when we talk about BoP businesses?Everything BoP is currently in fashion. The 'BoP business' term is catchy, but unfortunately it has no easy or clear-cut definition. That BoP business initiatives are currently so popular...
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Entrepreneurship and Development Reception, which marked the launch of the ANDE Network in Washington DC. My biggest takeaway: nothing says more about the bridging spirit of this initiative than the event being co-hosted by organizations representing the government, the donor community and the entrepreneurs working in the field -- as described below. I asked Katherine Samuels -- Summer Associate at Agora Partnerships and co-host of this great venue -- to share her insights on the event and the network with the NextBillion.net community, to which she kindly agreed. Katherine is a candidate for a Masters of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. By Katherine SamuelsSomething was in the air, a buzz, a special energy. It was the...
Guest blogger Virginia Barreiro is the Global Director of the New Ventures Project at the World Resources Institute. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California in San Diego and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from George Washington University.By Virginia BarreiroLast week a group of 42 people hiked together in Maroon Bells Colorado in the outskirts of Aspen, as part of a gathering that resulted in the formalization of ANDE - the Aspen network for Development Entrepreneurs. These individuals represent the most active organizations working on private sector solutions to poverty alleviation and sustainable development. We convened for two and a half days at the beautiful Aspen Institute to figure out how to do what we do... better. Although varying in...
Editor's note: The following blog post was originally published as a comment by Joseph Bornstein, responding to the numerous reactions generated by his previous entry "What Is Called Development?: Exploring The Nexus of Economy""Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none." Emerson, paragraph one of "Experience" This conversation has been truly exhilarating in that it has offered key themes for how we can perhaps answer the critique that I suggested as well as new criticisms in their own right. And like all good conversations, we now find ourselves in a series of thoughts and questions which illuminate our humility and lack of ultimate Knowledge. Not one of us was able to offer a clear...
I received an e-mail last week from the organizers of Social Capital Markets 2008, a conference bringing together "entrepreneurs who want to change the world and the capital that wants to make it happen." The organizers of SoCap08 - as they refer to it as - have lined up an all star cast of speakers, including longtime bottom of the pyramid practitioners including Bob Annibale of Citigroup, Paul Polak of IDE, Alvaro Rodriguez of IGNIA, Willy Foote of Root Capital, Jed Emerson of Blended Value and many more. The conference tracks will also be of interest to NextBillion readers, especially the "MFI and Beyond" and "Social Capital" areas.(This post continues past the break; click "Read More" to continue) read more...
Editor's note: I received this e-mail over the weekend, announcing a unique base of the pyramid sector competition. Read on for details. The Social Equity Venture Fund (SEVEN Fund) has recently launched the VINE (Virtual Integrated Networking Experience) Competition. The unique competition, open to all, merges the world of commercial financial investment with open innovation to promote a broader free flow of ideas for investment in emerging market small and medium sized enterprises. This online competition asks participants to answer the following question in 750 words or less: "What indicators can outside investors measure to help them predict the potential success of emerging market SMEs?" A $50,000 prize will be shared among all those who contribute to the winning...
I'm hungry, and it's getting late; I'm worried about missing my train. The potluck table full of food isn't helping my growling stomach, especially as more and more dishes arrive. A fellow bystander casually offers play-by-play commentary: "India's represented. Now Ireland. Ghana's here; so is Peru. Where are the Hondurans? And the Zambians! They always hold things up…" This scene took place yesterday, in the courtyard of a 1970s-era dorm at MIT, outside of Boston. Along with 60 others, I was waiting for the Hondurans and Zambians so we could begin the International Development Design Summit's (IDDS) around the world potluck dinner. IDDS is a two week workshop/seminar/collaboratorium organized by MIT's appropriate design guru,...
I believe that the dialogue on philantrocapitalism featured in NextBillion is actually rooted in a question of semantics. As Edwards points out in his book, the whole conversation surrounding NextBillion.net has coined a number of terms (Social Enterprise/Entrepreneurship, patient/creative capital/capitalism, blended value, double/triple bottom line, B, M and ToP, inclusive business, and the list goes on...) that can create confusion and may pose a risk overheating for the sector. Even SMEs are now being called Small and Growing Businesses. Not that I disagree; we want them to grow and become the next microfinance, but agreeing on a nomenclature wouldn't hurt. By the way, stay tuned next week for a wrap-up of the ANDE conference. Anyway, I guess this is the case for any...
I visited the slums of Nairobi in the summer of 2002. I remember being completely overwhelmed by the poor living conditions: large families cramped into little rooms, putrid refuse scattered throughout the neighborhood, young children left seemingly hopeless. I remember thinking to myself, what can possibly be done? That summer, upon graduating from the BBA program at the University of Michigan's Business School, I was in Kenya on a service project with a small group from my local church. For six weeks, a dozen of us taught English, science, and math in schools throughout Kenya. But it was while visiting the slums that something in my heart and mind shifted. It was an epiphany of sorts – similar to another epiphany I'd had the summer before, which led me to Nairobi in...
I recently had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Al Hammond which detailed his plans for revolutionizing rural medicine and access to telecommunications in developing nations. Here is a condensed rendition of the picture he painted: The majority of rural communities in developing nations have no access to telecommunication systems, and this is a problem considering that telecommunications are an essential tool for offering the poor services and possibilities that they would otherwise not have access to. The communications gap can be bridged by installing wireless access hubs in remote communities and the hand of wireless technology could leapfrog reaching almost any community at a cheap price. This innovation opens a whole new market for cell phone companies and offers yet...
Like any business, base/bottom of the pyramid ventures fail - often. I have neither the space nor the inclination to list those I know of - besides, writers from Erik Simanis to Aneel Karnani to Anand K. Jaiswal have done some of the heavy lifting for me. We don't talk enough about failed bottom of the pyramid ventures. After all, what CEO wants to risk his company by talking about all the things they did wrong? Answer: Matt Flannery. The Kiva CEO is incredibly forthright when discussing what they've done well and what they haven't. His latest blog post is practically a how-to guide for talking about failure inside a BoP venture.(This post continues past the break; click "Read More" to continue) read more...
Position: Investment Officer(s), Opportunities for the Majority InitiativeLocation: Washington, DCOrganization: The Inter-American Development Bank is the leading source of financing for regional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Opportunities for the Majority initiative (OMJ) applies sustainable, market-based strategies to bring the benefits of economic and social development to the poor and low income majority population of Latin America and the Caribbean. Description: OMJ seeks to grow its team of professionals in Washington with the objective of generating high quality, creditworthy, sustainable and demonstrative projects that can be replicated and scaled up to result in significant development impact.Investment Officers will be responsible for helping OMJ source...
After a few weeks of non-blogging, I'm happy to write my first post on NextBillion. I've spent some time over the last few weeks updating the Resources section of the site, complete with additions to the case study, reports, books and articles sections. A couple of highlights are summarized below, but we'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on what's particularly valuable and what you think we're still missing in our virtual library. The entire list of resources can be accessed here. Happy base of the pyramid reading!(This post continues past the break; click "Read More" to continue)read more...
Every good story begins with a witty insight, a forceful statement - something to grab the attention of the reader. This one, unfortunately, begins with shrimp. Before I visited Northeastern Brazil, I had only known the tasty kind - the ones that are served on small platters or served over pasta, that are fantastic with a little butter and lemon. A year ago, on a trip to the town of Tibau do Sul to research the aquaculture industry in the region, I encountered the much less pleasant type of shrimp - the alive kind that swim up and thrash you furiously with their little legs as you nervously wade through murky shrimp ponds. Some days the only sound that would penetrate the heat-induced silence of the farms I visited was the occasional shriek from another victim of an unexpected...
This will be a very special week for us at WRI as the New Ventures Global team will be in together in Washington. Taking advantage of this opportunity, we would like to invite you to a panel discussion on the landscape for sustainable enterprise growth in emerging economies. Featuring our five New Ventures Country Directors from China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico, the panel will discuss the current state of investment and entrepreneurship that has the potential to drive sustainable growth in these five countries. Panelists will discuss specific examples from our enterprise portfolio and provide insights about on-the-ground challenges of achieving scale. The panel will be held at the World Resources Institute on Wednesday, July 9th at 4:00 PM. A reception will be offered following...
Although I will miss my first 4th of July weekend living in the United States, I’m thrilled to be able to join my country’s own national celebration this weekend. I’m sitting right now at a gate in Dulles waiting for my flight to Bogota to start boarding, and I cannot wait to get over there and talk to my taxi driver to feel the optimism that must be ramping all over the country because of yesterday’s extraordinary news. I wanted to share this feeling with you before leaving and invite you to follow the coverage through your network of preference --CNN, BBC, Economist, Globovision or El Tiempo, just to name a few. Today a country is feeling that extraordinary things are achievable, something always worth sharing and celebrating. So farewell until next Monday, when I’ll be back...
NextBillion.net and its sponsors - World Resources Institute and Acumen Fund - have released a request for proposal to overhaul the site.Since its founding in 2005, NextBillion.net has grown to become one of the more prominent websites and blogs discussing base of the pyramid (BoP) approaches to poverty and environmental degradation. As part of NextBillion.net's recently-signed partnership between WRI and Acumen Fund, we are funding a round of upgrades to the site that are aimed at improving user experience and making the information on-site easier to find, use and share.As we noted on May 15, WRI and Acumen Fund have committed resources to re-design and re-launch NextBillion.net later this year. We hope this re-design will make the site more user-friendly, enabling smoother...
Position: Business Development Associate/AnalystLocation: New York CityOrganization: Acumen Fund is a global non-profit venture capital fund serving the four billion people living on less than $4 a day. Its objective is to create a blueprint for building financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver affordable, critical goods and services that elevate the lives of the poor. Acumen Fund invests debt and equity in enterprises delivering critical goods and services to the poor in South Asia and East Africa.Description: Acumen Fund's Business Development team is responsible for all Partner (donor) relationships (individual, foundation, corporate) at Acumen Fund, as well as relationships with Advisors, Board Members and our broader community. Increasingly, the role of the...
A quick roundup of base of the pyramid news and notes, including a few new publications that have made it on my to-read list: The UN Development Program launched a new website highlighting its Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative, which Staff Writer Grace Augustine covered here. (Full disclosure: I sit on the Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative’s advisory board, though I take no responsibility for the site's painfully long Flash intro nor the nonsense background music. Memo to UNDP web developers – simpler is better.) Once in, you'll find that the site features case studies, some of which will be familiar to long-time BoP watchers (Pesinet returns!); others are completely new to the sector. There are 46 cases to go through, which should keep even the most hardcore case...
Michael Edward's recent book on “philanthrocapitalism” reminds me of a recent conversation I had with my sister, a social worker. Over dinner one day, she started going off on business types: Why is it that business people think they are the answer to all the world's problems? You guys come off so arrogant! Somehow, we, who have been working in the civil sector for centuries, struggling to solve social issues, are completely inept, and you guys, who have all the money, are going to solve all the problems. I think many people have a similar perspective. And perhaps rightly so. Maybe we business folks didn't enter into the public/non-profit sector scene in the smoothest way. We in the BoP world know that when entering into a developing country, we can't...
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the Growing Inclusive Markets Forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The conference was hosted by the Faculty of Management of Dalhousie University and the Coady Institute of St. Francis Xavier University. The Growing Inclusive Markets initiative is a UNDP program that aims to "raise awareness by demonstrating how doing business with the poor can be good for poor people and good for business." The forum hosted a mix of development specialists, academics, and practitioners, who were all debating the growing role of the private sector in development. There was a great energy throughout the weekend, and the people in the room seemed to have no problem connecting across the issues and committing to action. I thought that one of the best...
If you've noticed a few unfamiliar names floating around the site lately, you're not alone. I have heard from some NextBillion.net readers asking who Joseph and Theresa are, and what their roles will be on-site. So, without further ado, introductions: Joseph and Theresa are Summer Associates working with World Resources Institute (Joseph) and Acumen Fund (Theresa) this summer. We're incredibly happy to have them on board. Already, Joseph has been posting news and events on-site; Theresa's edited our blogroll and has begun working on the Resources page. Still curious? Joseph graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy from Whitman College; he is a 2007 Truman Scholar and a 2008 Watson Fellow. Joseph has co-founded Whitman Direct Action (www.whitmandirectaction.org) which...
Last week's paradox has persevered into this week. More RSS feeds - plus some handy Google News and Google Blog alert feeds - means there's more BoP stuff out there than I can do justice to individually. As such, here's today's roundup:SKS Microfinance founder/CEO Vikram Akula has a new article out in the Harvard Business Review, Business Basics at the Base of the Pyramid. In the article, Akula offers a three-part prescription for success at the BoP: Adopt a profit-oriented approach in order to access commercial capital; boost capacity by standardizing products, training, and other processes; and use the latest technology to reduce costs and limit errors. Only the abstract is available for free, but this article is worth the $6.50 for a PDF copy.Sriram Thodla is a...
Guest blogger Arun Sharma is Scouting Lead for Innovations at the Lemelson Recognition and Mentoring Program (L-RAMP). He is also a writer for L-RAMP Blog, which explores trends in social enterprise, innovation, technology and poverty alleviation. By Arun Sharma At L-RAMP, we come into contact with many different innovators having ideas covering the spectrum, from new ways to make roads to new ways to make banana chips. This fascinating mix of people share the common trait of being intensely passionate about what they have created and impatient about getting their products to those who can benefit from them. Of all the characteristics which make up an innovator, it is this intense passion which I find to be most commonly held and it is this passion which can be a great asset or a...