NextBillion brings together the community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers, and academics who want to explore the connection between development and enterprise.
Our Staff Writers and Editors offer insights on the latest news, events, interviews and other happenings from the development through enterprise and base of the pyramid universes
March 22, 2010 — 12:56 am
I'm still waiting to hear from participants in the Social Venture Capital/Social Enterprise Conference in Miami this weekend and especially the Sustainable Haiti side-event that was planned there after the earthquake in Port-Au-Prince. But in case you missed it, this past week NextBillion was all Latin America all the time.
March 13, 2010 — 07:00 am
This week, we welcomed four new people to the NextBillion team: Maria Zheng, Andrew Eder, Bryan Farris, and Adeena Schlussel. Staff writers took new looks at how enterprises can intervene in education and early childhood to create new security and prosperity into the future.
March 6, 2010 — 09:00 am
Two innovative product companies that came out of one university course are delivering some basic things to children (of different ages): warmth and light. In the case of the latter, there are also some great lessons how to grab the public's attention and imagination for a new product for the base of the pyramid.
February 17, 2010 — 10:11 pm
In a recent roundup I highlighted an Oxfam "Brief for Business" on their Poverty Footprint Methodology. The footprint concept, intelligently borrowed from the use of the term for carbon, is a comprehensive approach to 'corporate social responsibility' that I think should open up opportunities for internal business improvement as well.
February 16, 2010 — 02:57 am
This past week saw the first ever Tech4Society conference take place in Hyderabad, India, focused on the worthy goal of how to build systems that maximize the social value of technology.
February 11, 2010 — 01:40 pm
To get a handle on all this mobile money buzz and walk through what mobile payments really look like, I sat down for a tutorial with Ben Lyon of FrontlineSMS Credit while he was in the Bay Area to speak at Google.
January 30, 2010 — 06:29 pm
One of my roles as Editor is to scan the news for articles of interest to our readership. But my job is getting harder - because "base of the pyramid" is becoming the general phrase used not only in the context of market-oriented development strategies, but as a figure of speech to refer to this segment broadly.
January 26, 2010 — 02:13 pm
Better late than never for, ahem, last week's roundup. The release of Bill Gates' 2010 "Annual Letter", plus two exciting incubator slates announced recently, West Coast Village Capital at The Hub in Berkeley and the Unreasonable Institute, both of which are part of the Village Capital effort by First Light Ventures.
January 15, 2010 — 12:02 pm
Even for a blog that concerns itself with the everyday struggles of people in often desperate poverty, the situation in Port-au-Prince makes summarizing this week's new research reports and events seem trivial. So: how to connect immediate humanitarian needs with the inclusive development Haiti has needed for so long?
December 18, 2009 — 03:44 pm
When innovation happens at the base of the pyramid and then moves to more wealthy markets - is that moving up? Going in reverse? Or is there a better way to look at it. On the same note, sometimes what is at the periphery of the global economy assumes central importance - like microfinance in Afghanistan. Plus, new events and opportunities.
