In the wake of last week's discussion of Professor Anand Jaiswal's new paper, I received a note from Professor Nancy E. Landrum from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.  Her new paper, Advancing the 'Base of the Pyramid' Debate (PDF), was first published this past May in the inaugural issue of Strategic Management Review.

In her paper, Dr. Landrum has done a more or less comprehensive overview of the Base of the Pyramid debate.  Her literature review has me looking up additional papers - and for that, I thank her.  She criticizes some aspects of C.K. Prahalad's arguments based on his 2005 book, Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits. 

Like Professor Jaiswal's paper, Dr. Landrum's falls short in that she fails to examine some of the more recent work in BOP.  This may be the result of unfortunate timing - her section on mis-measurement of the BOP would benefit from a close reading of the WRI/IFC report, The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid, which came out shortly before her paper was published.  It's also worth pointing out that Prahalad's research has advanced since his book came out, and that his speeches, articles, and even PowerPoint presentations are available online.

That said, I think this new paper is worth a close read for anyone interested in the BOP space.  The literature review alone is worth it, but Dr. Landrum's objective analysis of the BOP debate is the real gem here.  Check it out...and if there are other papers out there dealing with the BOP space, let me know!

In a recent interview with New Ventures staff, the China Environment Fund’s Steven Guo explains what two recent exits mean for green business growth.

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"Solar IPOs shine," raved a CNN headline earlier this year, a declaration that comes as little surprise to Steven Guo, director of research and analysis at the China Environment Fund. After all, two of the CEF's first three exits have been from companies in this high-growth industry, a sector with $4.7 billion in funds raised for initial public offerings this year alone. Since their IPOs, the performance of LDK Solar and Sunergy has been mixed; LDK's stock has leapt from 27 dollars per share to 43 as of August whereas Sunergy's price was 27 percent lower three months after it began trading publicly. Much of the reason for this difference can be attributed to circumstance - LDK is an upstream company which has been favorably affected by increasing silicone prices - but in any case, the returns associated with each exit have been crucial to the continued growth of the Fund.

 

Steven focuses on the dynamism and background of the entrepreneurs behind LDK and Sunergy as keys to their success.

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Great inventions have changed our lives and the world dramatically throughout history. For instance, my Mayan ancestors from the Yucatan invented the cero (a.k.a. the zero). Of course there are more mainstream inventions: the light bulb, the telephone, the Internet (thanks, Al Gore) - the list goes on forever.

The need for new invention remains. The world today needs inventors to create sustainable social change while protecting and restoring the environment. There's an amazing opportunity to innovate and create something new: a product or a process that will improve the quality of life for the generations to come in a sustainable way.

The $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability “serves to increase awareness of local or global sustainability issues and inventors working in these critical areas, and also supports continued inventive work of these individuals.”

Rob blogged last year about Dr. Amy Smith on NextBillion; she won this competition in 2000 with a series of designs focusing mainly on BOP needs.

To participate in this competition you must be a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or foreign national currently working legally in the United States. The inventors must have "created a product, process or material; made a technology more affordable; redesigned a system; or otherwise demonstrated remarkable technological inventiveness in addressing local or global sustainability in the United States and/or abroad."

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