Intellecap in partnership with Aavishkaar Goodwell and The Financial Express has announced the launch of the Srijan Microfinance Business Plan Competition 2008.

Deadline: March 15, 2008

Srijan (meaning creation in English) is a search for entrepreneurs, groups, individuals and microfinance institutions with innovative ideas and viable business models that aim at improving the sector and promoting financial inclusion of the poor. This annual business plan competition provides both start ups and established businesses an excellent opportunity to:

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Today, Bill Gates' speech at Davos has thrown the spotlight on "creative capitalism" and an emerging groundswell of interest in market-based solutions and business models that can drive positive social and environmental change. The excitement around these ideas to create self-sustaining, scalable options for development at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BoP) is encouraging, and the potential for a snowball effect of increased action is huge.

Yet all of the grand words and fanfare remind me that what is most riveting - what really seems to capture attention and combat ingrained suspicions (about "development aid" and about "capitalism") - are the actual stories of the models themselves.

So, today I'd like to provide a brief vignette of pieces that NextBillion has posted over the last few years that give direct windows onto how "creative capitalism" works, and what it looks like in action:

Large companies serving the BoP:
Casas Bahia
Codensa
Cemex
ITC's e-Choupal
ICICI Bank
Intel's World Ahead
MicroPlace
Smart Communications
Vodafone's M-PESA

Small entrepreneurs serving the BoP:
DESI Power
Drishtee
Gram Mooligai
Healthstore (SHEF/CFW)
Landwasher
Mi Farmacita
Scojo Foundation
Solar Electric Light Fund
Water Health International

Non-profits using market-based models:
Envirofit
International Development Enterprises (IDE)
Kiva

Patient Capita/Venture Philanthropy:
Acumen Fund
Aavishkaar

Design and Technology for the BoP:
MIT's D-Lab
Mobile Phones
One Laptop Per Child
RIOS Institute

For more organizations, case-studies, and current information related to the BoP space, search our resource library, follow the latest news, and subscribe to our RSS to keep up-to-date on our latest blogs!

In a speech at Davos today, Bill Gates called for a more inclusive capitalism that "would have a twin mission: making profits and also improving lives for those who don't fully benefit from market forces." That is a major milestone in the evolving thinking of perhaps the most influential philanthropist of our time.

In 2000, I organized a conference in Seattle on Creating Digital Dividends at which Mr. Gates, in a keynote address, famously said that "poor people don't need computers" and rejected a business approach to alleviating poverty. Within a year, however, he had changed his mind, and Microsoft became a leader in seeking ways to provide affordable services to low-income populations—in some small measure with WRI's help.

The beginnings of a more full-fledged belief in inclusive capitalism, according to the WSJ today, came at a dinner in Seattle, organized by WRI, in which Mr. Gates spent several hours talking with BOP guru C.K. Prahalad (in his capacity as a WRI Board member). I was also at that dinner, and remember Mr. Gates saying to me that the question was how far towards the bottom of the pyramid could business approaches go—not too far, was his assessment. But again, his thinking evolved.

Now Mr. Gates is arguing that capitalism, appropriately pursued, is in fact the best hope to bring services and improve productivity and create opportunity for the world's 4 billion poor - and that, accordingly, the world needs to invest much more heavily in the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises that are close to the poor. If Mr. Gates puts the muscle of his foundation behind such enterprise development - which we have long argued is the principal bottleneck to a successful BOP business approach - then perhaps the world will really change.

Update: The full text of Gates' speech is available over at Polity. Bruce Nussbaum at BusinessWeek also has some analysis, including kind words for NextBillion ally Acumen Fund and its CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz.