It's been quiet here on NextBillion the last few days - not by design, but rather out of necessity. Al just returned from two weeks of travel throughout Asia, and met Tuesday and Wednesday here in DC with our partners at Intel and MicroVest. Meanwhile, Bill just returned from Dubai, and Julia's currently in Toronto to present at the "Mobilizing the Private Sector for Global Health Development" conference.

And me? Well, compared to my colleagues, I'm boring - no passport needed for my recent trips to Manhattan (last week) and Armonk, New York (this week.) But that doesn't mean the trips haven't been interesting. I'll blog backwards, starting with my most recent trip - 2 days at the IBM Learning Center in Armonk - and post later about my meetings in Manhattan last week with Acumen Fund (quick previous post here), JustMeans, and UNDP.

The IBM meetings were great. First of all, they have amazing conference facilities, tucked in the woods adjacent to their corporate HQ. Everything is designed to foster collaboration, and collaborate I did. With whom? IBM has a relatively new team from across the company working on BOP projects. Not much can be said publicly about the team, per se, but some of their projects are in the public domain. Here's a quick rundown.

ThinkPlace Challenge On Monday, May 7, IBM will open up its renowned internal innovation software (ThinkPlace) to the global web community. The occasion? An "innovation jam" about the BOP and Africa. It will be a unique event to say the least. The most recent IBM Innovation Jam - held last summer - brought together over 150,000 people who contributed 46,000 ideas. The best ten received $100 million in start-up financing ($10m each). Check out my post on Worldchanging for details.

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