The date for submitting intention to compete forms for the first annual NextBillion Case Writing Competition has come and gone.  At the onset, the editors and I were unsure of how many people would submit."I'd be happy if we got ten," I told the Rob and Francisco.

Well, I'm pleased to let the NextBillion community know that we more than doubled that number with over 20 submissions from teams all over the world!  We had submissions from Washington University in St. Louis, Xavier Institute of Management, Dehlhi Technological University, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Tufts University, Colorado State University, University of Houston, York University, Syracuse University, and New York University - just to name a few.

Topics covered scaling BoP ventures (and questioning the need for it), assessing the impact of microfinance in Latin America, the effectiveness of using American youth to fundraise for ventures in East Africa, public/private partnerships, the role of MNCs at the BoP, and so on.

Rob, Francisco, and I are thrilled by the response from the NextBillion community and look forward to reading the final cases, along with the judges, in April.  Good luck to everyone who submitted!