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BOP businesses and entrepreneurs, take note: Fast Company wants you. The magazine’s sixth annual Fast 50 Awards will spotlight businesses that are helping to save the world – a can’t-miss opportunity for worthy base of the pyramid initiatives to make waves in the mainstream media. From the call for nominations:

We believe that business--capitalist business--is a profound force for positive change. Help us prove it.

Unlike many other awards and contests, the Fast 50 uses a relatively straightforward nomination form that emphasizes brevity and clarity over lengthy detail – surely the result of having top-notch reporters and researchers on staff. The Fast 50 Awards will accept nominations until December 1. Readers may nominate all businesses or initiatives regardless of whether or not they have a stake in the project. For a list of the 2006 Fast 50, check the FC archives.

Saima Zaman, a former colleague of mine, sent me a note the other day to tell me about her latest project: the Global Giving Olympics. For the next 3 weeks, project leaders at Global Giving will compete for cash prizes – whoever mobilizes the most support receives a windfall bonus. This unique contest brings a competitive, free-market feel to the world’s premier philanthropic marketplace.

GlobalGiving, founded by two former World Bank executives, is a platform that connects international donors directly to on-the-ground social, economic, and environmental development projects. The organization promotes transparency and accountability, and in its current contest, the power of competitive markets and networks. One of the founders maintains a great blog, often updating it with detailed from-the-trenches posts. We've written about GlobalGiving before and have even heard from Saima Zaman on-site.

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Just around the corner is the deadline for entries to the World Bank Development Marketplace 2007 competitive grant program. This year, approximately $4 million is available for awards of $50-200K to projects that are "improving results in health, nutrition and population for the poor." The program focuses especially on projects that have expansion, sustainability and replicability potential.

Entries must be submitted online by Friday, November 17, 6:00 pm EST (23:00 GMT).

My former colleague John Paul and I had attended the 2006 Development Marketplace awards conference earlier this year. We had been confounded by the magnitude of innovation and possibility present in the atrium of the World Bank (potential that was ironically so accessible yet undertapped by that wealthy institution). Without doubt however, the competition provides important support and opens up opportunities for finalists and winners. Best of luck to those who apply.

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Every once in a while, we receive queries about job opportunities with us or organizations with a similar focus on market-based development strategies. Here's a roundup of openings that might catch your eye. If you have an opening you would like to advertise on NextBillion, please contact us.

Communications Assistant
Unitus, (Redmond, WA)
"Unitus fights global poverty by using a venture capital model to increase access to microfinance."

Senior/Program Officer
Skoll Foundation, (Palo Alto, CA)
Established by eBay's first president, Jeff Skoll. The Foundation invests in, connects, and celebrates social entrepreneurs.

Several openings
ACCION International, (Locations internationally)
"By providing 'micro' loans and business training to poor women and men who start their own businesses, ACCION's partner lending organizations help people work their own way up the economic ladder, with dignity and pride."

Job listings continue past the break - click "read more" for the full post

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I attended the press conference Wednesday, at which the new findings on remittances. Interviews with 2500+ migrants in the US, the IADB (research by Bendixen & Associates) give us a statistically valid picture of the dimensions of US-LAC remittances, and the IADB concludes that the number is now around $45 billion dollars (up from the 2004 number, $30 billion), averaging $300 a month (up from the previously reported $200/month), and representing about 10% of the estimated $500 billion in income being earned by the 17.2 million adult LAC-region immigrants. That most of the senders and recipients are un-banked was described as an unrealized business opportunity, and as defining a policy agenda for the IADB.

What struck me in the IADB's press release was the emphasis on the economic benefits of the migrant workers to the US economy, the fact that 90% was staying in the US and being spent here, and the "values" in evidence by the migrants' "strong commitment to family and community," as IADB President Luis Alberto Moreno put it during the press conference. The reason for this interesting formulation was readily apparent when Don Terry, head of IADB's Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), which has spearheaded the tracking of remittances since 2000, appeared later on the Lou Dobbs show on CNN. Here's the full transcript.

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I've recently been reading through some past blogs, keeping a keen and curious eye out for activities to add to NextBillion's activity database...care to see what I found? Some very interesting, and of course worthwhile projects...

ZENUFA Laboratories - Tanzania

Zenufa, a pharmaceutical company, is settting up one of the first Tanzanian pharmaceutical plants complying with the WHO Current Good Manufacturing Standards. The project is being supported by BIO (Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries)

Zenufa has a long-range plan to produce more innovative drugs, not yet manufactured in Tanzania, such as ARV drugs for aids patients. Zenufa will sell most of its products in Tanzania but will also target other neighbourhood countries. In addition, this plant will improve the access to essential drugs, will help reduce prices and will offer opportunities to launch more sophisticated drugs. Zenufa will create about 150 new jobs, most of them for women.

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Mainstream media coverage of the intersection between business and poverty has been strong of late, undoubtedly catalyzed by Yunus winning the Peace Prize last week.  Three stories – two from National Public Radio and one from the New York Times – bear special mention here on NextBillion.

John Tierney writes in the New York Times (subscription required) that those of us interested in making poverty history should stop lauding Muhammad Yunus long enough to recognize another hero in the poverty alleviation fight: Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart.  He argues that poor villagers often prefer working $2 a day jobs in factories that supply Wal-Mart’s famously low-cost goods, and that even low-income jobs are better than no jobs whatsoever.  

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Guest blogger Brian McBrearity will be reporting from time to time about his experiences working in Zambia on SME and financial services development. His Zambia Journal posts will appear about once a week here on NextBillion.net. This is the first in the series.

I am not a development expert, nor do I pretend to be one. I cannot say that I have spent years in the industry, or have vast amounts of knowledge. In fact, this is my first international development role, and it happens to be in the area of microfinance.

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It was reported last week that Nicolas Negoponte and Libya reached an agreement to supply 1.2 million of the $100 computers to Libyan schoolchildren for $250 million. I was intrigued by the agreement, the math for which points up one of the problems with the effort - the computer itself may ultimately cost $100, but the infrastructure necessary - pipe, training, deployment, content etc. - takes a lot more money to make the deployment useful in local conditions. Will the Libyan money actually materialize? Who knows?

Myself, I would tend to exercise some caution when dealing with Col. Qaddafi and his bureaucracy. And the extra $130 million is just the down payment. But that is no argument against. It takes money to build infrastructure, and there will be broad benefits when a more robust IT network covers Libya. Rob and I argue whether OLPC is a "real" business. I say that $250 million is money, and even if the government is the buyer, there are lots of companies making lots of money selling things - real and imagined - to governments. Selling to governments is a business model, and if you can jumpstart the production - get the costs down - by selling to them, go for it. As my last post on this topic pointed out, the real benefits of the OLPC may accrue to all of us and the industry in general. We'll see.

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