Thanks everyone, for your e-mails about NextBillion.net.  No, we haven't stopped blogging - far from it, in fact.  Actually, we're in the very late stages of a site re-design process, and we're working out the final few kinks with our servers and whatnot.

We've decided to hold off posting new content until we launch the new site, because we can't keep migrating our entire database over and over.  This SHOULD happen by Friday of this week, hopefully earlier.

When the new site goes live, expect to see a completely new user interface, a design overhaul, a new brand/logo (sneak preview above!) and some great features like popularity rating, easier commenting, related articles and dynamic search.  We've also eliminated some unpopular sections and added new ones - like Research, Career Center and Take Action - that you've been asking for.

More as we know it.  But for now, don't give up on us!  We're still blogging - just waiting for the new platform on which to continue the conversation.

Thanks!
Rob, Francisco and the NextBillion.net Team

My friend David, NextBillion reader and BOPreneur, pinged me last night and rightly asked why NextBillion.net has been slower than usual these days, missing a few of big news pieces that relate to the base of the pyramid and development through enterprise. He's right. The truth is Rob and I have been with our hair on fire testing and working on what will very soon be the new face of this website.

In fact, if everything goes according to plan, this will be the last post I publish in NextBillion as it looks and feels now! Anyhow, it's Friday and I do want to take the opportunity to point you to a couple of relevant media pieces for you to catch up with this weekend, in case you haven't yet.

The first (hat tip, David) is a 14-page special report about the middle classes published in The Economist last week. Why is this relevant to our readers? Well, NextBillion.net is based on the premise that business, enterprise and the profit motive can serve the poor enhancing their dignity and choice so they can climb the ladder up to that level of the pyramid.

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iBoP Asia recently announced the winners of their first small grants competition and the second competition is coming up soon. I wanted to highlight the grants program for our readers at NextBillion, as I know that many of you have the ideas they are looking for.

A joint collaboration between the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) in the Philippines and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada, iBoP Asia seeks to advance the research agenda on science and technological innovations for the base of the pyramid in SouthEast Asia and does so through policy advocacy, conferences, small grants competitions, and more.

The winners from the first call for proposals can be found on iBoP's website and include Niti Bhan's Emerging Futures Lab, which, as a consultancy for BoP markets, will be looking at payment strategies and practices of the BoP with limited and irregular income. Several of the winners focus on improving farming practices, including the Sub-Plant Protection Department of Angiang Province in Vietnam and the Philippine Rice Research Institute, which focuses on building and sustaining the rice economy in the Philippines, through policy advocacy and providing farmers with greater access to technology.

As a BOPreneur living in Nepal, I was grateful to learn about iBoP Asia; an Asian entity such as ASoG that focuses specifically on the BoP in Asia, bringing together multidisciplinary actors across the region, is a welcome addition. I tend to be skeptical of organizations that focus largely on research, but iBoP Asia wants to bridge the research-practice divide with a focus on engaging the public, private, and non-profit sectors in research that leads to better innovations for the BoP.

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Last Friday Rob wrote news about new Base of the Pyramid conversations taking place, this time in Davos. Great news indeed. For those who can attend, venues like that of Davos (or the one starting tomorrow in Long Beach) are the time of the year when they allow their brains get picked by new trends, challenges and ideas. Connections take place, not only in the form of business card exchanges but most importantly inside their minds, among concepts and issues, dots that previously seemed somewhat disconnected.

Rob also promised a more in depth analysis of the content of the Next Billions reports on our behalf. However, I've decided not to focus my scarce bandwidth on that tonight. The reports are available for everyone to read and I encourage you to do so. I encourage interested readers to leave their comments and raise particular aspects of interest for discussion.

I don't think the impact of WEF's reports (or any book/ report for that matter) will come from their detailed contents, hence my choice not to write detailed analysis tonight. They are valuable but not how-to manuals. The reports become significant as long as they're able to spark curiosity in readers, which may eventually drive them to continue exploring relationships between seemingly disconnected dots --development and enterprise in this case-- by reading further into them, looking for other sources, or taking action.

Just as part of the Davos-and-beyond WEF audiences are beginning to explore the connection between development and enterprise (and food security and enterprise through their second report), I am myself starting to to wonder and explore into what I think will be the defining "connection" during our generation and for the development community in particular: that between climate change and poverty.

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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
 

Small excited confusion abounds as people scan the collection of buses for the signs that designate which program each bus is going to see: livelihoods, education, health or agriculture.  But soon enough, people are generally settled in and the still-inevitable puffs of smoke let everyone know the buses are moving and the day has officially begun.

I write from Day 1 of Deshpande Foundation's Development Dialogue, their second annual collection of NGOs, academics, businesspeople and socially-minded others who share an interest in the development of Northern Karnataka (nicknamed the "Sandbox" by the Deshpande Foundation), India.  In an earlier guest blog post, I described the work of the Deshpande Foundation and its commitment to promoting development through entrepreneurship. 

As a Sandbox Fellow working at local water conservation NGO Water Literacy Foundation (WLF), courtesy of the Deshpande Foundation, I'd been hearing about this event for months. It was both exhilarating as and exhausting to help it take off.

The morning started with the 250+ participants piling into buses that spent the morning visiting one or two sites of Deshpande-funded NGO work in the nearby area.

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As it should be clear by now to our frequent and not so frequent readers, the BoP is potentially a huge market. Within this potential market there are different segments depending on who products are directed to, which needs they address, or what income and educational levels the target customer has. Depending on the target geographic area, BoP members may face totally different needs and constraints.

Another important differentiating feature of BoP communities are the violence levels they face. For example, it could be argued that the Indian BoP is exposed to comparatively less violence than Colombian BoP. As I pointed out in a previous post, this is important because BoP communities are especially vulnerable to violence and crime. It has been shown that younger, lower income and less educated men are more at risk of being homicide victims, while women and their children are most affected by forced displacement (Moser, 1999).

Francisco pointed out in his post launching NextBillion en Español, that one of the defining characteristics of Latin American BoP markets are relatively higher levels of chronic violence. Such violence can come in many forms such as Colombia's narco-guerrillas, slum violence in Brazil, Tijuana's border drug wars in Mexico or Guatemala's, Panama's, El Salvador's and Hondura's "maras". Additionally, Latin America has a recent history of violent dictatorships which often literally terrorized its own people and which has left deep scars from which many communities are still recovering.

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Position: Development Director

Location: Washington, DC

Organization: Agora Partnerships is a non profit, social mission organization dedicated to providing talented entrepreneurs in developing countries with the tools, networks, and financing necessary to launch successful, socially responsible businesses - the kind that can fight poverty, provided needed goods and services, and help build a sustainable society. Agora has launched operations in Nicaragua and is preparing to scale regionally.

Description: Agora Partnerships is hiring a Development Director to help the organization increase its impact and expand throughout Central America. Agora Partnerships is a non-profit organization that provides strategy, networks, and access to growth capital to small business entrepreneurs in the developing world capable of creating positive change in their communities. The organization currently focuses on Nicaragua and is expanding throughout Central America and Mexico. Ideal candidates will be entrepreneurial self-starters with excellent interpersonal and communications skills. They will have competitive drive and passion to help competitive small enterprises in the developing world succeed. The position will be part of the senior management team and will play an integral role developing and implementing Agora’s expansion strategy. As Agora has a small staff, we are looking for a high performing individual who has the skills and temperament to work independently and help Agora grow.

For more information, including how to apply, see the attached job description (PDF).

Attention Indian engineering undergrads: the Engineers for Social Impact (E4SI) fellowship program has opened its annual recruitment process.  E4SI matches the most talented undergraduate students from fifteen elite Indian engineering schools with partner social enterprises that focus on development by means of sustainable for-profit entrepreneurship. 

I am a big fan of this program, which was co-founded by NextBillion staff writer alum Nitin Rao.  (Side note: Nitin developed the idea while a StartingBloc Fellow, another fantastic program that I can't recommend enough.)  The E4SI fellowships combine the best of consulting, technology, and social innovation.  Fellows get unprecedented access to the development sector as they work with leading social entrepreneurs, attend leadership workshops at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and pitch their ideas to thought leaders as they join an outstanding cohort of exceptional young leaders.

Partner social enterprises for the 2009 edition of the E4SI fellowship program are leaders in microfinance, multiple bottom-line investment advisory, education, energy, and healthcare. They include Ujjivan, one of the fastest growing microfinance institutions in India; Intellecap, a strategic advisory firm that mobilizes investments for socially-motivated businesses; iDiscoveri, an experiential education organization focused on self-discovery and meaningful learning in economically emerging societies; Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO India), a company that provides reliable, affordable, and environmentally sustainable energy services to rural homes and businesses; D.light Design, an organization that believes everybody deserves modern light and provides innovative solutions for people living in a power constrained world; dhanaX, an award-winning online-offline person-to-person lending platform that draws inspiration from the entrepreneurial spirit of thousands of small farmers, underprivileged women, and small business owners across the globe; and Vaatsalya, a company that seeks to expand rural and semi-urban healthcare by building and managing hospitals where they are needed most.

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Position: Communications and Development Associate

Location: New York, with potential for extensive travel

Organization: Founded in 1997, Endeavor works with High-Impact Entrepreneurs in Latin America, the Middle East, South Africa, and India. High-Impact Entrepreneurs are operating for-profit businesses with enormous growth potential. Endeavor supports these entrepreneurs by providing access to mentors, strategic advice, management talent, capital, and inspiration. In turn, these entrepreneurs create jobs and wealth in their countries. To date, Endeavor has selected 406 High-Impact Entrepreneurs running 266 companies. These entrepreneurs have created over 86,000 jobs and, in 2007, $2.51BB in revenues. It is a powerful model that Thomas Friedman has hailed as the "best anti-poverty program of all."

One critical criterion when selecting entrepreneurs is their role-model potential. Endeavor searches for entrepreneurs whose stories will inspire others to become entrepreneurs.  Endeavor works to build relationships with the press, business schools, foundations, and conferences to trumpet the stories of these entrepreneurs.

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Here at NextBillion.net, we believe in the power of small and medium sized enterprises to spur economic development at the bottom of the pyramid.  This idea - one of the core principles of the "development through enterprise" movement that's gaining steam in business and development circles alike, enjoys widespread support.  Unfortunately, that support just fell off a little bit - at least financially.

In a blog post dated December 23 of last year, Google.org's Sonal Shah announced that Google.org - the philanthropic arm of the eponymous search-engine giant - will be "putting [its] SME initiative on the back burner" in 2009.  Dot Org first announced its support of small and medium enterprise development this time last year - read the full press release for details.

In her blog post, Shah reassures current SME grantees that Google Dot Org will continue to support the grants and investments its already made.  That's small comfort to the number of worthy intermediaries, technical advisors and nascent venture funds that might have otherwise received support from Google.  Yes, by shifting resources away from small and medium enterprise development, Google Dot Org will be able to better focus its invesments; this may be the right strategic choice for them.  Still, it's a tough pill to swallow, especially as a number of non-profits look into the funding abyss that is 2009.

Position: Project Manager

Location: Ghana ‐ Accra

Time frame: Full Time, Starting January 25, 2009

Organization: Grameen Technology Center.  The Grameen Technology Center, an initiative of the Grameen Foundation, focuses on technology that makes microfinance operations more efficient, creates income‐generating opportunities for the rural poor and provides rural communities access to information and knowledge.

The Information and Communication Technologies Innovation (ICT Innovation) Program of the Grameen Technology Center works with a range of partners to develop, test and deploy sustainable and scalable solutions using widely available mobile phones. It is also exploring the potential of new technologies toextend the reach of information and knowledge to improve lives and livelihoods and examining the ways mobile phones can increase the quality and quantity of healthcare services.

The ICT Innovation Program of the Grameen Technology Center is working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to increase the quality and quantity of healthcare services provided to women and children in Ghana through the identification and pilot testing of scalable mobile phone based applications. This project will develop and pilot test mobile phone based health applications in the Dangbe West district of Ghana. One application will use mobile phones to feed detailed community‐level health information into the District Health Information Management System (DHIMS), saving nurse time and increasing the level of detail available at the district level.

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Position: Development Officer

Location: Bloomfield, New Jersey, USA; international travel to Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Organization: E+Co, a non-profit investment firm focusing on clean energy enterprises in developing countries, is seeking a qualified graduate level (Masters) student for research and writing assignments. The internship will last 3-6 months with flexible degrees of workload. E+Co cannot offer any remuneration. The intern can be based near one of E+Co's offices in Amsterdam (NL) or Bloomfield, New Jersey (USA) or the work can be conducted remotely supported by e-mail and phone calls.

E+Co is non-profit investment company that invests business support services and capital in energy businesses in Africa, Asia and Latin America. With almost 15 years of experience and offices in 10 countries, E+Co's innovative business model provides lasting solutions to climate change and poverty.

Position Overview: The Development Officer will manage E+Co's fundraising programs, working closely with and reporting directly to the Executive Vice President.

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