Want to keep track of what's going on in Switzerland this week?  Many will undoubtedly be following the glitzy World Economic Forum, but allow me to suggest an alternate: the Social Entrepreneurs Summit.  Also sponsored by the Schwab Foundation and held concurrently with the Forum, the Social Entrepreneurs Summit "provides an opportunity for social entrepreneurs to come together to share knowledge, experience, exchange best practice and benefit from cutting-edge knowledge in social enterprise planning, management, as well as communications and other aspects that they identify as critical to their enhanced performance."

My Worldchanging colleague Jonathan Greenblatt is attending the Summit this week and has posted his first report from Switzerland.  As the founder of Ethos Water, Jonathan is a social entrepreneur himself.  He has also served as a Vice President at Starbucks, so he sees things from the large-company side of the coin as well.  In his first post, he observes that

While the conversation focused on facilitating the opportunities for investors, I found myself a bit at odds from a practitioner perspective. Deal flow for large-scale investors is important, but as a social entrepreneur myself, I see different near-term challenges. For example, when my business partner and I were starting Ethos Water, we both struggled to find accessible role models who could provide insight into best practices. My firsthand experience suggests that mentorship is one of the most critical gaps on the landscape and a daunting hurdle for would-be entrepreneurs.

How do you know when a person, idea, or trend has truly arrived? When it gets spoofed by The Onion. In today's edition of the well-read parody and satire magazine, the lead article is entitled Chanel Develops Durable, Low-Cost Perfume For Third World. This is an obvious stab at the "base of the pyramid" - a growing consensus that multinational corporations and small entrepreneurs alike should re-orient their strategy to include low-income consumers and producers. The article is clearly spoofing C.K. Prahalad, a leading base of the pyramid (BOP) strategist. In his best-selling book, Prahalad describes how Hindustan Lever markets face cream to low-income consumers in India. This example has come under attack from many in the development community who see it as exploitative. Regardless of where you stand on the BOP theory, it's hard not to laugh at The Onion's take. A short excerpt:

As for 3rd's scent, Chanel wanted something "clean, youthful, and beguiling," said Chanel chemist Robert Geneau, adding that organically musky, smoky, and earthy tones had been rejected because the scent's intended users most likely had too much musk, earth, and smoke in their lives already. "3rd has a bright, grassy base, like a fresh breeze after a rain—a very exotic scent for our target customer. There are also notes of cocoa, citrus, spices, and other things our customer sometimes raises and harvests for foreign export, but rarely gets to savor herself. Captivating, and for a fraction of the cost of high-end scents available in the West, 3rd is just the economic miracle developing nations need."

(Hat tip to Earthtrends' Amy Cassara)

I suppose "alternative energy" and "China" are indeed like peanut butter and chocolate, as Matt Richtel of the NYT analogizes. At first glance the combination seems incompatible (the word China to me for a long time conjured up images of massive coal power plants, not wind farms) - but after the idea sinks in, you wonder why it took so long for the two to come together.

Over the weekend, Matt wrote an insightful piece in the VC Nation column on the coming cleantech boom in a country that will be a key energy trendsetter for decades to come. The article partially focuses on the efforts of consultant Jerry Li (a New Ventures China alum!) to attract investment to some of the most important up and coming entrepreneurs in the country's green sectors.

Ruikang and Shenwu are singled out as two hot companies making waves among foreign VCs coming into the country I'm glad the Times is picking up on these small businesses and that they are getting the publicity they deserve - it confirms what we at New Ventures have known about them since they joined our portfolio three years ago: that these entrepreneurs are simply ahead of their time.

Editor's note: NextBillion staff writer Courtland Walker recently returned from a 10-day trip to Rwanda. Over the next week, he will post reflections on his trip as part of the Rwanda Journal series.  This is the second post in the series; read the first here.

In reference to David's request for further explanation on, "People don't need electricity, they need jobs," what was supposed to be a short reply, was not, but hopefully it proves to be an interesting read.

In posing the hypothetical, "If I had a million dollars..." question, I was trying to frame a larger development issue that struck me during my time in Rwanda; how to prioritize investments for sustainable improvement of livelihoods based on observation of on the ground realities.

I spent most of my trip in a rural area to the east called Rwinkwavu, one of the poorest regions in the Rwanda...