Sunday's New York Times featured an extra-large insert on design.  Most of the articles therein dealt with uber-modern furniture, clothes I would never dream of wearing, chic buildings on the Upper West Side, etc.  Not my speed.

As I leafed through it anyway (it was a lazy, rainy Monday in Boston where I was staying), I came across a short article on an upcoming exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.  Design for the Other 90% will open on May 4 and run through the summer.  If you're in New York this summer (and I mean the city, not the Hamptons), be sure to check it out.  From the web site:

...this exhibition highlights the growing trend among designers to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world's population (90 percent) not traditionally serviced by professional designers. Organized by exhibition curator Cynthia E. Smith, along with an eight-member advisory council, the exhibition is divided into sections focusing on food, water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, energy and transportation and highlights objects developed to empower global populations surviving under the poverty level or recovering from a natural disaster.

In the context of fast and unequal growth in India's economy, Outlook magazine released its special issue on its annual State of the Nation survey.

Using India’s poorest district - Bolangir (Orissa) - as an example, the issue attempts to document how fast paced growth in an urban economy can be seemingly meaningless for a large population. The issue, available online, is also a useful resource in terms of statistics on various Socio-Economic Indices.

With initiatives such as the NREG (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) being rolled out, experts from industry and government have given their perspectives on the issues that will matter in delivering to the "other India".

An excerpt:

There’s a certain exuberance and excitement; there’s a growing feeling that India, with its 9 per cent plus growth, is ready to take on the world and make a mark on the global map. The recent high-profile takeovers by Indian businessmen like Ratan Tata and Kumarmanglam Birla has added to that confidence. Not to forget the fact that the services epicentre has shifted to India’s Bangalore and Hyderabad.

But still, there’s a huge chunk of population—250-300 million people—who have been categorised as poor. The numbers will swell if one includes the households whose earnings are below Rs 10,000 a year. This is the "Other India", the India that’s neither talked about nor discussed. This is the dark and ugly face of the country, which stands out in stark contrast with the one that’s glowing. This is the India that silently suffers, even as it sees the other half prospering. This is the "nearly-forgotten" India.

The NextBillion.net team is happy to welcome Tayo Akinyemi as our newest Staff Writer.  Tayo is a soon-to-be MBA with domestic and international experience working with nonprofits, for-profit companies, and start ups. She has hands-on knowledge in the areas of direct mail marketing, event planning, strategy creation, collateral development, and website management.

Prior to becoming a NextBillion blogger, Tayo worked in business development for a Chicago-based consulting firm, Burke & Partners.  She currently works as a Content Analyst for Cymfony, a market influence analytics company.  Tayo started her career at Catalyst, a New York-based research and advisory organization working with businesses to build inclusive environments and expand opportunities for women at work.  After nearly four years with Catalyst, she accepted a Princeton in Africa Fellowship to do democracy and governance work with an international NGO in Abuja, Nigeria.  At the conclusion of her fellowship, she joined the marketing department of an emerging telecommunications company in Nigeria, Suburban Telecom.

Tayo holds a degree from Princeton University.

I have to admit, when I first encountered Karnani’s initial critique of BoP, entitled “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Mirage” I was beside myself with excitement. Although I had read much of NextBillion’s content with interest and hope, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Where is the other side of the debate?” Karnani introduced a dissenting opinion, which is invaluable. However, Karnani’s use of inductive reasoning via case study method, while illustrative, limits the degree to which his assertions are generalizable.

As a result, I’ve decided to dedicate my blogging activities to constructing, facilitating and fomenting (heavy emphasis on the latter), a multi-faceted debate. I truly believe that BOP business development is on to something. But defining that “something” is a continual process to which I intend to contribute. Right now, the “who, what, where, why and how” of BOP thinking is coming into focus, due in no small part to the work of your friendly neighborhood NextBillionaires. What I’d like to explore are alternate forms of those questions: “What for, who for, why so, and how the heck is that possible, really?”

“How will you do that?” you ask. Great question! I knew that you readers were a smart bunch. There are several questions that I’d like to tackle over the course of this blogquest, but I am not foolhardy enough to believe that I have the answers. That’s where you come in. Each week I will pose a question and attempt (note the word ATTEMPT) to answer it. I welcome those of you who have an opinion, an insight, a complaint, or a completely random yet witty comment, to chime in. With no further ado, the questions are as follows. Let’s get ready to rumble.

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Yesterday, I had the privilege of introducing our BOP market report, The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid, to nearly 100 people at the US Agency for International Development. The day before, I did the same for a more academic audience at the Mortara Center at Georgetown University. Both groups had lots of interesting questions:

Q: What other kinds of data would empower business investment, and were we going to gather that too?
A: Very fine grain market data are needed, but at present we are not working with them.
Q: What about local merchants or producers in the informal economy that might be pushed aside by more efficient formal businesses?
A: A market-based approach will have winners and losers, but will, we believe, improve opportunities for both producers and consumers.
Q: What is the role for governments in creating the enabling environment for business investment?
A: See the IFC/World Bank Doing Business reports.

But what was most interesting to me was the questions they didn’t ask—questions about the credibility of a market-based, private sector strategy to alleviate poverty. In effect, what I "heard" from both these audiences was that the report tells such a compelling story, that the N4B analysis of BOP markets and business strategies makes such a convincing case, that no one wanted to question the need for an expanded private sector role in meeting the unmet needs of the BOP. Many in both audiences said, quite directly, that the data provide the needed empirical backing for the BOP hypothesis and move the discussion to a whole different level.

That's also the message we infer from the feedback we are getting from the private sector. A VP of one of the world's largest industrial companies called us up, had us walk him through the data, and used it the next day to get his proposal for developing a group of new BOP businesses approved. An analyst at one of the world’s leading investment banks told us that his boss had put a copy on the desk of every analyst in the emerging market group and told them to use the data to start thinking about where they should be investing. And that's just in the first week after the report was released. This unique dataset, we believe, will be influential in helping to catalyze or justify many investment decisions in BOP markets.

My colleagues and I will be giving this talk lots of times in the coming months, and undoubtedly we will get a lot more feedback on the report. But it is satisfying to feel that our year’s worth of work has produced something of value, and that it provides a strong foundation for the expanded efforts to scale enterprise development that we are planning. More about those plans another time.

An assortment of BOP-related news stories came out over the weekend (or over the last week or so).  Some are longer than others - particularly well-written are the two Forbes stories on Good Capital and Tata Motors.

First, my friend Kevin Jones was profiled in Forbes late last week.  Kevin, who blogged from the Skoll World Forum for NextBillion, is a principal in Good Capital, a pioneering social venture capital firm based in San Francisco.  Unlike other VCs (Acumen Fund, Aaviskaar), Good Capital is structured as a private equity fund.  So far, they've raised the first $10 million of a $30 million fund.  From the article:

Good Capital is structured much like your typical private equity fund. It requires a minimum capital commitment, in this case $250,000. The life of the fund is seven years; small distributions will likely begin in the fifth year. Fees are rich: 2.85% annually and 20% of any profits. The justification, per Jones, is that Good Capital has to analyze social benefits as well as business prospects. Like some venture capitalists, it will do lots of hand-holding for the businesses in which it invests..."This is patient capital," says Jones. Risky capital, too. Good Capital won't have any claim on assets if its investments go awry. "If we blow up, we really blow up," he admits...For-profit investment candidates include firms that employ troubled youth and fair trade vendors, which are commodity producers that profess to pay good wages in the developing world (for example, to cattle ranchers and coffee growers). These portfolio companies need to spend a sizable chunk of their energy on doing good. "Because we're the first to try this, we're picking from the best," argues Jones.

The other Forbes piece is a cover story on Tata Motors' much-ballyhooed 1-lakh car, The Next People's Car.  Since we profiled the idea here on NextBillion last year, it has been one of our most-viewed stories; people are clearly interested.  Forbes' Robyn Meredith describes how Tata management fought has cut costs and engineered solutions in search of the 1-lakh goal (1 lakh is about $2500 USD).  From the article:

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WRI's Development Through Enterprise team (also known as the NextBillion staff) has an immediate opening for a full-time, paid intern.  This position will be responsible for research and writing assignments documenting the intersection between business and development.  As you know, we work to further sustainable economic development by researching best practices among businesses that serve the poor in low-income countries, and disseminating these business models by partnering with companies and multilaterals on implementation projects and conferences.

More information, including how to apply, is at the job listing.  This is a great opportunity - a lot of us here started as interns, myself included.  Hope to hear from you!

Sorry for the late notice, but if you don't have lunch plans today and are in or around Washington, try to swing over to DuPont Circle for what promises to be a fascinating talk. Jeffery Galinovsky (of Intel's Emerging Markets Platform Group) will present World Ahead, an Intel program that will invest more than $1 billion over the next five years to speed access to uncompromised technology and education for people in developing communities.

I know Jeff, and I have seen the Classmate PC in action (there will be a demo today as well). If you're at all interested in the One Laptop Per Child idea, stop by today to see how others are approaching this issue. The presentation will span a variety of interests, from education policy to technical design. Jeff is not only a successful platform manager at Intel, but he's an electrical engineer by training, so he promises to make a great presentation.

If you can't make it today, keep an eye on NextBillion - I plan to attend and will blog on it later today or tomorrow.

What: Jeffery Galinovsky presents Intel's World Ahead Program and demos Classmate PC
Where: International Resources Group, Suite 700, Conference Room, 1211 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC. Map
When: 12:00 - 2:00 today
Note: This is a brownbag lunch event, so bring your lunch.

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In my old age I’ve come to understand that points of ideological contention can be very eye-opening. My friend Akwasi and I considered each other relatively liberal, like-minded urbanites until we had the “gender role” conversation. Yes, that one —the quintessential Mars/Venus debate. According to Akwasi, women have certain roles such as housekeeping and child-rearing and that they are obliged to fulfill. My view is somewhat more fluid: each party should perform the duties to which he or she is best suited, traditional expectations notwithstanding. I will spare you the details of the tete a tete, but I will share my rather rudimentary analysis of the subject.

After much hand-wringing and a rather ad-hoc consultation with my uncle in Lagos, I concluded that from a “historical” perspective, gender roles had (what I considered to be) relatively unambiguous utility. I reasoned that early man was suited to hunting and gathering due to his greater physical strength and size while early woman, as the child bearer, remained at home out of harm’s way. In my narrow rendering of the world, gender roles were simply a sensible expression of the division of labor. As the capitalist system developed, however, traditionally male roles became recognized by the market and female roles did not. Because we are pushing the boundaries that dictate gender roles, who does what, when, and for whom is now a much more complex question.

So what is the point of my idle musings apart from offending anthropologists, historians, scholars of gender studies - anyone with an informed opinion? Well, quite frankly, it begs the question of where women exist in capitalist society, and more specifically, where they exist at the BOP.

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Microcapital reports (via Auctionbytes) that eBay has moved into the peer-to-peer lending space with the purchase of MicroPlace.  This is significant because eBay is far from the first to enter this space - which is currently dominated by Kiva, Zopa, and Prosper.

How will a big company like eBay succeed in the nascent world of P2P lending?  Will this affect the way Kiva or Propser works?  More on the acquisition, from Microcapital:

MicroPlace will soon launch an eBay style online marketplace where individuals will be able to make microfinance investments, most likely in the form of notes offered by microbanks.  The transaction will be hosted by eBay working through an intermediary like the US Calvert Foundation in order for such investments to clear regulatory hurdles. It will be in the same vein as current sites such as prosper.com (for-profit), where individuals list and bid on loans within the US market, and Kiva.org (non-profit) where individuals can lend to specific micro-businesses in the developing world through links with microfinance institution (MFI) partners.

How “great a thing for the global community” it remains to be seen. The success of this recent venture by eBay will depend on giving its customers what they want. But in a ‘global community’ who are the customers? If the customers are those people in advanced economies, shopping online for “feel good” investment opportunities, then MicroPlace is likely to be as successful as Kiva.org and Prosper.com. However, for the microbanks and the micro-borrowers involved there is the additional risk of foreign currency exchange. If this risk is not properly managed then the burden will fall heavily upon those who we all seek to help.  Can a giant like eBay responsibly off load this clear and present risk onto microbanks and micro-borrowers?

Aram Kang is Program Coordinator for the Sustainable Enterprise Program at WRI.  Originally from Seoul, Korea, Aram holds an MEM from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

By Aram Kang

This past Friday, April 13th, WRI hosted the William James Foundation’s 4th Annual Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition.  Although slightly different from our enterprise development work here at WRI, the event was a kindred spirit in the sense that it was all about promoting sustainable business and entrepreneurship.  

After a few welcome remarks (Sheri Willoughby – WRI associate, John Nelson – WJF President, Chuck Dell – WJF Founder, and Ian Fisk – WJF Executive Director), the event got right down to what everyone had come for – finalists’ presentations.  Of the sixty entrants this year, the top three finalists were indeed impressive as they addressed sustainability from various different angles.

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I attended an all-day workshop at the IFC yesterday on their Grassroots Business Initiative (GBI). A half dozen of the Initiative's enterprises from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and 30 or so GBI partners also attended, along with their program staff. The meeting was conducted under "Chatham House" rules, which means that I can't report on who said what, but allow me to share with you a few general observations, and a bit about one talk.

First, no surprise here, it's remarkable how many of the issues that are of concern to these quite small enterprises (and intermediaries helping them) are exactly those that big organizations must contend with —finding and succeeding in markets, managing for growth, balancing objectives. It's no solace to these small, struggling social entrepreneurs, but things don’t get easier when you get bigger.

Second, there was general agreement that the big issue for these fledgling enterprises is (lack of) access to some hybrid form of capital combined with technical assistance and business mentoring. Solving this problem is critical, not just for the businesses, but also the multilateral development banks who are losing — no, have already lost — their central role in financing big enterprises; there is so much private capital sloshing around the world that the MDBs need to go downstream, and fast. These are, of course, exactly the issues we are focusing on inside DTE for the foreseeable future (more on that as activities unfold).

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Andrew Mack is a former World Bank official and Principal of AMGlobal Consulting. He previously blogged for NextBillion .net about Rwanda's IT development and leapfrog technologies, in January 2007.

By Andrew Mack

About three weeks ago, I sat in a conference hall in San Francisco and listened as President Paul Kagame of Rwanda addressed a group of African and US Government officials. Nothing particularly remarkable in that. It's part of the role of head of state, after all.

However, the location was more than symbolic. The event was at the Hilton, in the Financial District, in tech-rich northern California. And the audience was chock full of luminaries of the IT world, from Cisco, Oracle, Motorola, Microsoft and others. What is even more remarkable is that nearly everyone in the audience agreed.

They agreed on the power of IT to transform the continent, and on its ability to help countries "skip steps in development" by adding more dynamism to local business. Kagame himself referred cell phones as the "lifeline of microentrepreneurs".

They agreed on the importance of increased investment in IT as a way of improving government. New technology, said Kagame, was no luxury, but a central focus of the country's programs in delivering remote education, providing disease surveillance and avoiding drug shortages.

They agreed on the incredible demand for IT on the continent. An expert from Uganda's Makerere University described how Uganda's cell phone penetration had gone from 5,000 units 9 years ago to more than 2.6 million today. In fact, a cell provider that didn't exist in Uganda a decade ago was the nation's #1 taxpayer in 2006.

But unlike so many meetings, this private sector-government pow-wow went much further, and the implications are important for companies that want to do business on the continent and for Governments that wish to attract them.

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I came across, by chance, what promises to be a very interesting venture.

A group of Indian youngsters are launching a social venture called The Spark Group. They have been educated at Ivy League universities such as MIT Sloan and Yale. Ayan Sarkar and Priya Naik - two of the founders - have worked with Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus in Dhaka.

The Spark Group is an idea incubator working at the grassroots level in India. Using insights from academic research, the Spark Group develops promising ideas into commercially viable business ventures that deliver valuable services to poor communities. The Spark Group is funded, in part, by the IFMR Trust and is supported by The Boston Pledge.

The projects include Spark Accreditation - in which for a fee, any school can receive a letter-grade evaluation of its quality. Another project is Spark Guru - a teacher assessment service where trained teachers would be sent to identified schools and enhance the learning capabilities of children. Also in the pipeline are initiatives in the space of technology solutions for microfinance and education investment.

The venture is just starting off. In the meanwhile, the team in the process of studying success stories from India. The Spark Group Blog is an interesting capsule of their progress and of education in different parts of India.

Given an impressive team of management and advisors, one hopes that a new breed of organisations like The Spark Group can finally bring sustainable solutions to issues like quality education in India.

Last week, I sat in a conference room full of DC development-types over lunch, listening to a presentation sponsored by the Society for International Development.  It was standard stuff - the woman next to me was reading the New York Times as folks shuffled in, and I spotted a few people I know who work for DAI, Chemonics, and other development contractors.

As the event was gearing up, however, it became clear that it was no regular brownbag lunch.  First, the room was totally full - no offense, but these sort of events aren't usually so compelling as to attract 50 people on a Wednesday.  Secondly, I started to see people I know from outside the "development" world.  Fred Tipson, Microsoft's Senior Policy Counsel here in DC, slipped quietly into a chair towards the back of the room.  Then Eric Gundersen and Alex Barth of Development Seed, a local website development firm, sat in my row.  Not the usual lunchtime crowd for a SID event.

The large, diverse crowd had come to hear from Jeff Galinovsky - and I can't blame them.  Jeff manages Intel's Emerging Markets Platform Group, and is intimately involved in their World Ahead program.  He's an interesting guy, to say the least.  Trained as an engineer, he's worked for Intel for 14 years and has seen their emerging markets strategy evolve over time. 

Back in the day, an "emerging markets strategy" for Intel involved taking their older technologies (n-1, n-2 in Jeff's engineer parlance) and selling them overseas.  Simple - but not that effective.  Seeing an untapped market opportunity, Jeff and his boss pitched the idea of a for-profit Rural Connectivity Platform to Intel CEO Paul Otellini.  The platform would go local to assess needs first, then move into product development - a reversal from what Intel had done in the past.  It seems straightforward, but for a major tech firm in the post-dotcom era, the Rural Connectivity Platform concept was and is a big stretch.  

Meanwhile, Intel's philanthropic arm and their capital department began to work in emerging markets.  To make them all work together, Intel developed World Ahead, a sort of umbrella to tie the business side in with the philanthropy and the investment parts.  World Ahead is driven by four elements - Accessibility, Connectivity, Education, and Content.

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