SMEs adaptability = ideal conduit to BoP

In a post on Nextbillion.net yesterday, Derek Newberry, wrote a great piece on how SMEs serve as an ideal player in modifying technologies and products to reach the BoP. He starts off by recognizing the recent interest by large multinational corporations (MNCs) in serving the bottom billion, but then pushes forth the inquiry about the [...]

Investing in Private Education, a solution?

Nitin Rao, a staff writer for Nextbillion.net, has published a paper in the MIT International Review, titled Harnessing India’s Human Capital Through Educational Opportunities, which puts forth the idea that education can be effectively delivered in India through “sustainable investments in a vast network of private schools delivering standardized, high quality education at an affordable [...]

Remote Blogging: Skoll World Forum 2008 - Replication and Scale

At the recent Skoll World Forum, the Berkeley Bottom Line bloggers covered Dr. Paul Farmer’s speech following the Replication and Scale session. Diverging from discussions of business models and financial feasibility, Farmer offered a human touch to the idea of social entrepreneurship and scale. They quote from his speech:

ACCESS to PureIt

A joint effort by ACCESS Development Services, an Indian microfinance technical services non-profit organization, and Hindustan Unilever is providing water purifiers to poor families. Unilever’s PureIt does not require any electricity or running water and so is perfect for rural use.  Nextbillion.net highlights the benefits of such a partnership through an anecdote.
Yakalakshmi lives in Nekkunda [...]

Op-Ed: Arrogance today, humility tomorrow

A curious micro-debate seems to be emerging in the blogosphere on what is more critical to a social entrepreneur’s success — their humility or arrogance. This is an interesting discussion, as both qualities provide varied paths to success and failure.
For example, often times organizations are inextricably tied to the charismatic, larger than life personalities of [...]

Just Call Me on My Cell …

At the risk of overstating the role that mobile phones will play in reaching the BoP, a great post on NextBillion.net talks about how cell phones have reached the level that Malcolm Gladwell would label a “social epidemic.”
It is notable that Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and enlightened CEO of Google has said that [...]