Like the year before, it was cold, it was early and it was at the Rubin Museum of Art. But that’s where the 2008 Acumen Fund Investor Gathering ceased to be like the 2007 version, at least on the surface.

On a personal, micro level, there were obvious differences: last year, I attended representing my then-boss, an Acumen Fund advisor; this year, I am an Acumen Fund employee. To be sure, the change in vantage point (from audience member to staff member) accounts for some of the differences I observed between IG 2007 and IG 2008.

With a little time and distance, however, I’ve decided that substantive changes – in Acumen Fund’s world and the global community at large – account for the bulk of year to year differences.

From November 2007 to November 2008:

• The global financial system experienced turmoil unlike any in our lifetimes, precipitating massive asset devaluations worldwide;
• Kenya went through a period of post-election violence that it is still working to recover from socially, politically and economically;
• Pakistan struggled to fight terrorism, saw its former president assassinated and watched as its military ruler peacefully ceded power to a democratically-elected government;
• India continued to boom, saw income inequality explode, and experienced its own 9/11 moment when terrorists attacked multiple sites in Mumbai;
• The United States’ housing market meltdown precipitated a global recession; amidst economic turmoil, the country elected a new president.

To be sure, the challenges facing Acumen Fund and our community are arguably as great as they have ever been. Fortunately, and if last year is any indication, it appears that we are prepared to face them head on.

How prepared? Here are some notes from the Investor Gathering, outlining how Acumen Fund has continued to invest in businesses serving low-income customers, and how we plan to ramp up our work again in 2009.

After breakfast – and a state-of-the-state address by Jacqueline Novogratz, which she covers in her autumn update – Brian Trelstad gave the audience a thorough update on Acumen Fund’s portfolio. Acumen now has 33 investments under management, as well as 5 exited investments, meaning we’re beginning to learn more and more about housing, drip irrigation, anti-malarial drugs, LED lights, health clinics, ambulance services, clean drinking water – the list goes on – and that’s Brian’s point.

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Guest blogger Francesca van der Feltz is a graduating MS student with a focus in Asian Regional Business Environment at Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is the Net Impact president and Service Corps non-profit consulting leader on campus.

She earned a BA in journalism from Arizona State with focuses on political science, economics and law, and published front-page articles with the Arizona Republic's data team. She studied Dutch in the Netherlands and is learning Mandarin Chinese. She now focuses on sustainable trade and business practices in Asia.

By Francesca van der Feltz

Searching for amazing win-win solutions is a lofty goal, and my search at the Net Impact conference began with a session that explored the stake businesses have in supporting economic development and stable societies in the locations in which they operate. The panelists came from notable diplomatic and development organizations, and they each had a unique angle to discuss based on the programs they work in.

Business as a peacebuilder

The first panelist to present was Melissa Powell, head of strategy and partnerships for the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), where she leads the work on business and peace and UN-business partnerships. Powell articulated the UN's view of the private sector's role in conflict prevention and peace building, saying the private sector is a stakeholder in society and should therefore work actively to create a sustainable and fair global economy. Powell pointed out that business by nature has an interest in stable environments that allow for strategic decision-making.

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I'm writing from Cartagena, Colombia, where "The Business of Inclusion" conference will take place later this week. The conference is organized by the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) and NextBillion has been invited to cover the discussions that will take place during the next few days as a media sponsor. As someone whose interest is contributing to a stronger and more maningful development-through-enterprise movement in Latin America, I am grateful for this opportunity.

There are two aspects of the conference I am particularly excited about. First, WRI will co-host a panel on Friday, in which we want to highlight creative and entrepreneurial solutions to some of the most pressing challenges faced by our society. Also hosting the panel will be AVINA, one of the largest private foundations in the region, and FUNDES, a key actor in the local enterprise development space.

The three organizations form the Network for Inclusive Markets, through which we intend to identify scalable business models serving the base of the pyramid in key sectors and mobilize key actors for their implementation in Latin America.

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As one of the editors of NextBillion.net, I am privileged to work with a cohort of talented, committed staff writers.  I am consistently impressed by the staff's ability to generate high-quality analysis of base of the pyramid trends again and again - often during their nights and weekends, as most have full-time jobs in addition to their NextBillion responsibilities.

It wasn't always this way.  When NextBillion started, back in May 2005, it didn't have "Staff Writers" - it was just the co-founders and our bosses at WRI writing from time to time.  We solicited guest posts, sure, but there wasn't a staff, per se.

That all changed with Nitin Rao.  At the time we met, Nitin was a student at NIT-Karnataka, deeply passionate about the base of the pyramid and a regular NextBillion reader.  We began an e-mail correspondence, which led to an invitation to join NextBillion as its first Staff Writer. 

In the months and years since, Nitin has graduated from NIT-K, taken a job at SKS Microfinance, and been accepted by the Sloan School of Management at MIT for a MBA program.  Oh, and he's also a social entrepreneur in his own right, launching Engineers for a Sustainable World Engineers for Social Impact and Let Me Know, two sites that encourage students to join the social enterprise movement.

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Yesterday, we bid a fond NextBillion farewell to Nitin Rao, a staff writer here for the past two years.  Well, the transitions aren't done yet!  We at NextBillion are thrilled to welcome our newest Staff Writer, Jenara Nerenberg.

Like Nitin, Jenara is based in South Asia - Nepal, to be precise.  She is an entrepreneur, journalist, policy expert and researcher.  Jenara will cover a range of topics for us, including but not limited to the latest market research and BoP trends in and around Asia.

Please join Francisco and me in welcoming Jenara to the team; her bio follows the break.

I have always been fascinated by citizen journalism and the power of media when put in the hands of the people. On this topic, I came across Channel 19 recently, a venue for the base of the pyramid in India to film and screen their own news stories, or in Jessica Mayberry's words, to create a "CNN for the base of the pyramid."

A huge applause is due to Jessica, the founder of Channel 19 and an Echoing Green Fellow, for taking initiative and starting the organization. Channel 19 consists of Community Video Units (CVUs) across India where individuals are trained in how to produce short news stories that reflect the issues that matter to them; the spots are then screened in their local communities. I am looking forward to seeing where Jessica takes this. 

Additional initiatives such as the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society's Global Voices and Rising Voices aim to expand and fortify an international online presence of marginalized voices through video, blogging, and other participatory media. NextBillion allies Ethan Zuckerman and David Sasaki help run the Voices projects and are strong advocates for citizen-empowered participatory media.

While having a "voice" is inherently valuable, how can we enable such media programs to lead to development and income-generating opportunities for the BOP and attract corporations to invest in BOP markets at the same time?

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Francisco and I have been remiss in not posting more news & notes roundups here on NextBillion, so here's a shot at redemption - at least for today.  Without further ado, some news and notes within the Base of the Pyramid community:

The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs - ANDE - just announced the hiring of its first Executive Director.  Randall Kempner will be based at the Aspen Institute; he starts January 6.  ANDE, which we've written about before, is basically a trade association for organizations working with small and growing businesses in low-income communities.  (Full disclosure: both Acumen Fund and World Resources Institute, who sponsor NextBillion.net, are members of ANDE.)

For the curious, check out Randall's profile at Prosperity Strategies, the Council on Competitiveness and OTF Group.  We at NextBillion wish him the best of luck in his new job and look forward to working with ANDE to further the cause of small and growing businesses in developing countries.

In other base of the pyramid news, the Legatum-Fortune Technology Prize was announced earlier this week at a lavish dinner in Washington, DC.  The five finalists attended, each vying for the USD $1 million prize.

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Today we are announcing the launch of NextBillion en Español, a new forum to promote and discuss inclusive business models that enhance and dignify the lives of the poor in Latin America.

As said in my last post, we are launching it with the coverage of the Interamerican Conference on Inclusive Business, whose opening ceremony kicks off in exactly 10 minutes, in Cartagena Colombia. 

Conceptually, it shares the spirit and intention of this site NextBillion.net, although focusing on the specific challenges of Latin America. Visually, you can consider this new blog a modest preview of what the "new NextBillion.net" will look like once we launch it it early 2009. In fact, the Spanish section will be fullly integrated into NextBillion.net under the new website.

A big THANK YOU goes to Rob Katz and and Manuel Bueno for their support and ideas. Also to the members of the Network for Inclusive Markets (AVINA and FUNDES) who are key promoters of this initiative and will be instrumental in the purpose of developing local and relevant content for the site.  

If you are interested in reading more about the thinking that went behind the decision of launching this new effort, I encourage you to read past the break.

Your ideas, suggestions, criticism, etc. are more welcome than ever.

Hasta pronto!

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is launching a new project called "Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Global Agriculture." With the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the project aims to document evidence on what works in agriculture—what sorts of policies, programs, and investments in agricultural development have substantially reduced hunger and poverty.

They are inviting nominations highlighting interventions that have had a significant impact on food security, including those that have empowered women and vulnerable groups to improve their livelihoods. The nomination deadline is December 31.

For more information click here.

It's been a while since I last posted an entry on NextBillion.  My apologies to the community.  I have been wrapped up on a number of projects at work.

 
I'd like to use this post to wrap up the discussion on talent management at the BoP with some personal reflections.  

I was at UC Berkeley a little less than a month ago, speaking on a Net Impact panel on the base of the pyramid topic.  At the conclusion, each of the panelists was given a few minutes to make a closing statement.  When the time came for me to speak, I challenged the students to bring up BoP issues in the classroom, to press their professors to incorporate more of this teaching in their syllabi, and to take untraditional jobs upon graduation. 

Afterwards, I ended up having a really interesting conversation with Mike Lee (a second year MBA student at UC Berkeley who also blogs on Social Edge.)  We started to have a conversation about what it means to be an Asian American in a typically "non-Asian" field and the challenges faced to getting there.  (The topic was of such interest that we ended up having a follow-up conversation over Skype a few days later.) For those of you who are of the Asian decent, I’m sure you know what I mean by "non-Asian" field.  For those of you who are not, a brief digression.

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Guest Blogger Lesley Pories is a Deshpande Foundation Sandbox Fellow, working with the Water Literacy Foundation in India.

Before taking on this role, Lesley worked as a Research Analyst with the People and Ecosystems Program at the World Resources Institute. A graduate of Emory University, she double-majored in International Studies and English and minored in French.

By Lesley Pories

Social entrepreneurship is the key to growth in India.  So believes Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, one of a notable number of Indians who honed their own entrepreneurship skills to profit from India's burgeoning IT sector back in the 1990s.  Co-founder and Chairman of Sycamore Networks, Deshpande is convinced that it is social entrepreneurs who will push India to the next level, and he's doing his part to ensure that this happens.

The Deshpande Foundation, the family foundation of Desh and Jaishree Deshpande, is headquartered near Boston, MA and focuses on promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and growth in the northern part of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, the native region of both husband and wife. The Foundation focuses its efforts on five districts of northern Karnataka, which it has nicknamed the "Sandbox."  This name was not given because of the area's desert composition (it's not a desert), but rather as a symbol of what it hopes to achieve through its programs in the area.

A sandbox (a popular playground structure in America which, ironically, does not exist in India) is a space, defined by four walls, in which children use the sand to create.  In the same way, The Deshpande Foundation strives to nurture local people and organizations to create new structures that can lead to positive development within a confined space. 

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This is Part One of a two-part series on the economic crisis and what disruptive leaders everywhere should do to survive and thrive.

If you have been following my posts here or on my blog you'll notice that my underlying approach to business is how all things disruptive - disruptive thinking, disruptive strategies, disruptive innovation to name just a few - can be a good thing. Change is good. Thinking out of the box is good. Alternative business models are good. Etc. I've been thinking long and hard about how what is clearly the biggest disruption to nearly every market and industry around the world can be a good thing.

Call it what you want: the financial crisis/meltdown, the economic downturn/recession/disaster. It dominates my two favorite business magazines: BusinessWeek and The Economist. It's hard not to finish reading these and not find myself in a funk. I've stopped looking at my IRA/401K, but I still have a guilty addiction in watching what the Dow does every day.

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This is Part Two of a two-part series on the economic crisis and what disruptive leaders everywhere should do to survive and thrive. Go here for Part One.

"You can't save yourself out of a recession."

This quote was used often by Craig Barrett, Intel's CEO in 2001. The basic meaning of this statement is this: companies can emerge stronger after a recession but only if they continue to invest in innovation, sales and business development. It does not mean that you can ignore the environment and continue to spend like before. Companies must cut back in non-performing or non-crucial areas, but maintain or increase investment in product innovation and development.

In 2001, after the dot-com bust and 9/11 induced recession, Intel - where I worked at the time - increased its multi-billion dollar investment in R&D and future manufacturing expansion, and tripled the multi-million dollar budget for business development in emerging markets. But they also cut back spending in other areas, laying off thousands of employees and shutting down many unprofitable business ventures (Intel Online Services, their failed data center operation, is just one example).

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Although we in the BoP sector often talk about the role of the informal sector as an important factor (both as a competitor and as an ally) when crafting sustainable models for low income communities, precious little has gone into analyzing it. One of the most important reasons for this lack of analysis is because of the shortage of data referring to it. By definition, informal businesses are hidden from the eyes of the state and so most of what we have relies on estimations and very micro-level studies.

A recent cross-country report that appeared in the Brookings Papers on August 2008 aims to improve the understanding of the relationship between economic development and the informal economy. The report, entitled "The Unofficial Economy and Economic Development" is authored by Rafael La Porta and Andrei Schleifer, two renowned professors and scholars in the development studies field.

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Aneel Karnani, a Professor at the University of Michigan and a Managing Director at FSG Social Impact Advisors, is a long-time critic of market-based approaches to poverty alleviation and the "base of the pyramid" concept in general.

His latest article, Romanticizing the Poor, appears in the Winter 2009 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.  A brief excerpt:

Market solutions to poverty are very much in vogue. These solutions, which include services and products targeting consumers at the "bottom of the pyramid," portray poor people as creative entrepreneurs and discerning consumers. Yet this rosy view of poverty-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful. It allows corporations, governments, and nonprofits to deny this vulnerable population the protections it needs. Romanticizing the poor also hobbles realistic interventions for alleviating poverty.

This article came across my desk last week, and I've been thinking about it since.  A formal response is in the works - to which I will invite Professor Karnani to respond here on NextBillion - but I wanted to make sure that everyone reading the site knew about the article and had the chance to read it themselves in the meantime.

Comments are open below if you have immediate thoughts; should this spark an interest, here are some of Professor Karnani's other critiques of the BoP concept:

• The Mirage of Marketing to the Bottom of the Pyramid
• Microfinance Misses its Mark
• Doing Well by Doing Good Case Study: Fair and Lovely Whitening Cream
• Help, Don't Romanticize, the Poor
  

Update 12/15/08: Aneel Karnani is not a Managing Director with FSG Social Impact Advisors, as I reported Friday.  The erroneous material was sourced from the Stanford Social Innovation Review web site; even so, I should have cross-checked it.  My apologies.