Social entrepreneurship is more than a buzzword - it is becoming an industry in and of itself. And one of the best niches in this new industry is occupied by a group I know and respect, StartingBloc. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, StartingBloc runs an Institute for Social Innovation and a Career Accelerator, both of which build a network of young social entrepreneurs that drive change around the world.

If you're new to the idea of StartingBloc, check out Jennifer Vilaga's profile of Martin Smith and co. in Fast Company. A bit closer to home, Sara Standish (now a MBA candidate at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell) has also profiled StartingBloc, as has Staff Writer Nitin Rao.

I'm also a StartingBloc Fellow - having completed the program last spring. Between Sara, Nitin and me, we've been to New York, London and Boston, where the Institute for Social Innovation has been held. Applications for this year's Institute are now open - I highly recommend that folks apply.

Questions? Contact StartingBloc or feel free to write us directly.

CGAP recently launched a new blog on technology and microfinance, led by Communications Officer Jim Rosenberg. Jim has a preternaturally polite nature and speaks with a delicate inflection that almost belies some of the intense experiences of his journalistic background (covering the wreckage at the Pentagon on September 12, 2001 comes to mind). In a recent interview with NextBillion.net, he discusses his vision for this online space and tells us what a microfinance blog means for the underserved and the development community alike.

A somewhat provocative starter: 2.5 billion people in the world are without access to finance. How does blogging help them?

Let's be honest, those people who lack access to finance are probably not reading the blog. However, the microfinance community, the mobile phone sector, commercial banks that are trying to expand services to the poor, journalists who cover these issues, people curious about mobile phone banking or smart cards - they are reading the blog. Hopefully the work we're doing is useful to them, or we're pointing them towards interesting news or research that others are doing. Since we launched in September we've logged visits from 136 countries. We have a mandate from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other CGAP member donors to share what we are learning, and to raise awareness about how technology can increase access to finance for poor people.

It seems like many development institutions have blogs these days - what will separate CGAP's?

Ideally we'll be complimentary to the good things that other people are doing already. We have two key objectives for the blog: 1) increase awareness about how technology can expand reach and reduce cost for access to finance and 2) provide a way for CGAP research and learning to be shared in a rapid way.

(Click "Read More" to continue reading Derek's interview with Jim Rosenberg)

I recently came across an article on CNNMoney.com about world-leading supplier of telecommunications Ericsson’s plan to provide mobile phones and internet connectivity to the Millennium Villages. It caught my attention, since it relates to a flurry of recent activity on NextBillion. We’ve seen a lot of discussion and press about rural connectivity (DesiCrew in India), wireless internet possibilities (Al Hammond’s blog on rural Brazil), mobile phone networks (M-PESA), and other technological advances (Tom Friedman’s editorial, and Rob Katz from Pop!Tech). These have now become integral to many of the most innovative and expansive solutions for providing goods and services to the poor, but through market-based models.

Ericsson is partnering with The Earth Institute and with pan-African telecom MTN to bring mobile broadband connectivity to the Millennium Villages, beginning with the village of Mayange in Rwanda, with plans to extend to all seventy-nine Villages across 10 countries, reaching approximately 400,000 people.

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What's the net impact of Pop!Tech?  I've been thinking about my time in Camden, Maine a lot lately - never more so than while I attended the 2007 Net Impact conference this past week in Nashville (see, pun very much intended.)  In all seriousness however, my trip to Tennessee prompted the following questions: what is the impact of Pop!Tech and what will it do next?

These questions are not accidental; the Net Impact conference's theme this year was, in fact, What Will You Do Next?  With 1800 attendees and up to 16 sessions at a time (!) there is no one answer from Net Impact.  Despite the wide variety of experiences among attendees, the conference managed to communicate a clear theme: get it done. 

Part of that theme stems from the fact that Net Impact attracts mostly MBA students - they are all about starting a business or at least working with organizations that address social and environmental problems.  I saw MBAs eager to be the next Claire Broido Johnson (of SunEdison) or Paul Hudnut (of EnviroFit) - two perfect examples of people who are "doing it next" through their work. 

(Side note: check out Paul's excellent blog, What's a BOPreneur? and his report from Net Impact.)

Pop!Tech, on the other hand, is just beginning to dip into the "get it done" arena.  This year's conference, The Human Impact, seemed to be a departure from previous events.  Quite a few attendees described previous Pop!Techs as gadget-fests, featuring the latest innovative products and concepts.  This year's conference, on the other hand, gave a lot of stage-time to problems, mostly environmental degradation and persistent poverty.  I'm not sure the old-school Pop!Techies were happy with this shift, even though the conference did a marvelous job pointing out the innovative tools, models, and ideas that are indeed changing the world - and featured some great "get it done" types, like Jessica Flannery and Van Jones (among others.)

From The Times of India:

When Bradley Montgomery relocated to Bangalore from California, his primary concern as a single parent was to hire a domestic hand not just to cook and clean, but also to tend to his son Aaron (11). His mother chanced upon babajob.com and within days, Montgomery hired Celine D'Silva.

The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times have also run articles on this unique form of social networking: Babajob.

Babajob.com and Babalife.com are a combined effort to provide the best social networking and job site in India and eventually worldwide. It’s based on the simple idea that everyone deserves to get a better job – even if you can’t read English and work in another’s home.

Most people find jobs through people they know – namely their extended social network – and most employers – particularly when hiring employees that work in the home, would like to hire a person who someone they trust can vouch for.

Babajob and Babalife are an attempt to digitize this process to efficiently “get the word out” and importantly provide an incentive for the folks in between an employer and employee to connect people together.

Right now Babajob.com is limited to jobs in Bangalore that generally pay under Rs 10,000 (about $250) per month.

While the concept is laudable and innovative, I sense that there could be enthusiasm ahead of time.

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In 2004, Ashwin Naik had 2 interesting choices. An MBA at MIT's Sloan School of Management or an opportunity to jump into healthcare for the rural and semi-urban population. Ashwin chose to follow his passion and co-founded Vaatsalya. As Ashwin put it, "it was an opportunity to learn at the ground level" - a field MBA if you will.

Vaatsalya is a healthcare services company located in India with a mission to provide affordable quality healthcare services to the rural and semi-urban population. Though 70% of the Indian population lives in the rural area only 15% of doctors practice in the rural areas and 20% of total hospital beds are located there. The Vaatsalya family of healthcare providers are dedicated to changing this inequality and at the same time create a viable, socially-responsible business from this opportunity.

Vaatsalya, started in 2004 through savings and money from friends and family, will complete 3 years this December. Venture capital and strategic support from investors such as Aavishkaar helped Vaatsalya reorient its thinking, impact and positioning "from a social organisation to a social enterprise".

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By Ethan Arpi and Rob Katz

While discussions of Ratan Tata's 1 lakh car - and other entrants to the ultra-cheap car market - are nothing new to NextBillion.net and many other blogs, the concept received another burst of publicity over the weekend when New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman featured it in a piece entitled No, No, No, Don't Follow Us. Friedman - whose column is syndicated in newspapers throughout the world - argues that while Americans don't occupy the moral high ground when it comes to driving, following the American model of motorization would be catastrophic for India's economy and its environment.

Friedman's point is well taken: if India doesn’t leapfrog the American model, it risks choking its economy on smog and traffic. (See China; Beijing for a sobering look at the potential future.) Not convinced? The statistics speak for themselves: There are 11 personal vehicles for every 1000 eligible drivers in India. China, another country inundated by the tide of urbanization, has nine personal vehicles per thousand eligible drivers. How many does the United States have? The answer is staggering: 1,148! Anyone who has sat in traffic in Mumbai knows this is no joke - at 11 cars per 1,000 eligible drivers, India is already maxing out its city’s streets.

One possible solution - the American model - is to simply build more roads to accommodate more cars. India's already trying that - with little success. Friedman notes that a recently-opened highway in Hyderabad has already reached capacity, suffering from the very bottlenecks it was built to prevent. The perverse incentive of road construction is that it encourages private car ownership, which, in turn, encourages more road construction. It’s a vicious cycle that ends by destroying cities that were originally meant to be saved.

We argue that there is a third way for India: It should neither replicate America's car-centric model, nor should it try to build its cities without sufficient mobility. Rather, based on smart planning and good policy, Indian cities can be shining examples for other cities around the world, accommodating unprecedented growth while improving the economic, environmental and day-to-day lives of their residents.

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Acumen Fund is currently seeking highly qualified applicants for the position of India Portfolio Associate.

Location: Hyderabad, India

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.

(via iPienso)

Position: Director of Program Innovation/ Interim COO, One Acre Fund

Wanted: Early-career (3-10 years post-undergrad experience), “elite” business professional to work in Africa

Work in Africa for One Acre Fund, an exciting non-profit that runs like a start-up business!

Organization Description: One Acre Fund is a start-up initiative in Kenya and Rwanda which works with persistently hungry farm families. Instead of giving handouts to families, One Acre invests in farm families to generate a permanent gain in farm income. Its "investment bundle" includes education, financing, inputs, and export market access.

One Acre Fund has been operating for 20 months, and currently serves 500 farm families (2,500 children). It will grow to change the lives of 30,000 families (150,000 children) within the next three years, scaling at a 50-100% growth rate thereafter.

Job Description: The Director of Program Innovation is the first "major" full-time hire for the organization, and will be essentially a partner to the founder, in laying the organization's foundation. One Acre Fund's day-to-day operations are currently run by 30+ (growing quickly) local field staff; the Director conversely, will be responsible for new program innovation and for laying infrastructure for long-term growth.

For details about the position and for application instructions, please see the attached file.

It has been an exciting week in the "base of the pyramid" (BOP) world, at least from my vantage point.  From mainstream media coverage of key BOP issues to off-the-radar developments in organizations like Endeavor and Acumen Fund, a lot is going on.  A brief wrap-up:

On Sunday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman weighed in on India's low-cost car debate.  His column - which Ethan Arpi and I reviewed on Tuesday - demonstrates how the environmental pressures business will face when operating in low-income markets.  Irresponsible product development, distribution and marketing (however unintentional) can threaten firms' right to operate in these greenfield markets, losing BOP trust before they know it.  Even more, companies whose products and services turn environmental risk into business opportunity (think distributed energy or water) are poised to succeed as never before in markets like India.

On Wednesday, I traveled to New York to meet with some truly world-changing individuals: the 2008 class of Acumen Fund Fellows.  This group of seven was selected from more than 500 applicants - a 1.4% acceptance rate.  To better understand the scale here, Harvard's acceptance rate for its newest class was a comparatively generous 9%.

I spent two hours with the Fellows, discussing base of the pyramid concepts, trends, research, definitions and communications.  I was excited to learn that the Fellows will have a blog this year, and that each is going into the field with a video camera.  (Side note: Check out Jocelyn Wyatt's excellent blog posts from her time as an Acumen Fund Fellow last year.)  Remember these names (I've listed the companies they're working for as well as where they're heading):

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Yesterday, I attended a presentation by Madhav Pai, who was visiting WRI to tell us about a system developed by an organization he has worked with called Mapunity, that is linking together MIS, GIS, and SMS technologies to enhance transportation access and planning in Bangalore.

If this sounds only mildly related to poverty, or particularly technical, it’s only because describing it in other terms seemed insane, trite, or both (other titles for this posting included: "Democracy in Density," "Beam Me Something Useful" and "Cell Phones in Motion").

Basically, the original idea for Mapunity was to come up with an open-source system for Bangalore that would perform functions similar to those provided by Google Maps. Mapunity now offers the SMS-driven Bangalore Traffic Information System, which provides extensive information about bus routes, locations, and traffic congestion in real time, deliverable to cell phones, for free (or at minimal cost, if you’re not with Airtel).

The system works by collecting information on cell phone signal density, and using that as an indicator of congestion at different intersections.

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We at the World Resources Institute (which powers NextBillion.net) are pleased to introduce Manuel Bueno as NextBillion.net's newest staff writer.

Manuel Bueno is a staff writer for NextBillion.net. He is currently employed as a Financial Services Strategy Consultant at the Deloitte office in Madrid. He has two years of experience in strategy and transactions.

After receiving a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics, he worked at a microfinance institution in India and at Procter & Gamble. Manuel has always had a keen interest in business models in developing countries and is now in the process of writing a book about how the "Base of the Pyramid" can be best served by business. He is also a staff member and editor of the newsletter at CEOs Without Borders.

Welcome, Manuel!

This week, AVINA, FUNDES, and MASISA are hosting a regional 3-day workshop for Inclusive Businesses and a special Business Forum in Santiago, Chile. WRI's Al Hammond is participating as a panelist at the Forum today and sent the following comments in from Santiago:

Inclusive Business Approaches in Latin America

By Al Hammond

Nearly 250 people gathered in Santiago today to explore BOP business opportunities in Chile and Latin America. The reception to my presentation and those of other speakers were very positive, and the questions penetrating.

How can we make a social transformation through business? Whom do we need to partner with? Which sectors have particular opportunity? What are the business models that can scale?

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The Center for Global Development (CGD), an independent, non-partisan, non-profit policy research organization in Washington, DC seeks a part time or full time intern to provide administrative and research support to CGD’s executive office. The Intern will support the executive office in a broad array of functions.

Location: Washington, DC

Salary: $10- $14 per hour, commensurate with experience.

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I am in New York City today, attending the 2007 Acumen Fund Investor Gathering.  This annual event is an opportunity for NextBillion ally Acumen Fund to engage its stakeholders - investors, entrepreneurs, partners and supporters - in a discussion of where the fund has been and where it's going.  Today was my first Investor Gathering, and it was an event I won't soon forget.

The first speaker was Monitor Institute President Katherine Fulton.  Fulton, who before joining Monitor Group, co-lead the Global Business Network, delivered a compelling speech entitled "Acumen's Moment." 

She began her remarks arguing that Acumen Fund finds itself on the front lines of a "battle for the soul of philanthropy."  A weighty metaphor, to be sure, but her message rang true to me: why isn't philanthropy more effective?  Fulton suggests that Acumen is leading the way from an Industrial age of philanthropy - dominated by family foundations - to a more market-driven system that values entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability.  And with more and more billionaires in the world - nearly 1,000, according to Fulton - the opportunity to change philanthropy is now.

How is Acumen Fund leading this change, and waging this so-called battle?  Fulton suggests they are taking four key stands.  First, Acumen has a clear and compelling mission, address global poverty, from which it does not stray.  Second, it occupies a unique space at the intersection of charity and markets, exercising what Fulton calls an "imaginative, empathetic and focused use of power."

Third, Acumen has developed an enviable worldwide network, including in-country offices in Kenya, India and Pakistan.  With its supporting network - many of whom were present today - Acumen can leverage its investments and knowledge unlike other, traditional charities.  Fourth, Acumen has chosen to develop, rather than simply participate in, the field of social innovation.  This final stand is demonstrated by Acumen's leadership developing portfolio data management tools, social impact assessment frameworks, knowledge sharing partnerships and new investment vehicles.  While Acumen has no responsibility to develop the field, per se, it has chosen to subsidize the cost of significant new tools and methodologies that will help those of us in its universe.

Fulton's speech set the stage for a truly inspiring day - more to come on that soon.