The results are out for first annual BoP e-Journal competition organised by the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s Johnson School. We have recently blogged about how Cornell's BoP Learning Labs are moving the discussion to developing markets, and gaining live insights from BoP experiences gleaned from around the world.

The competition was developed to highlight the challenges of doing business in underserved markets and identify innovative business experiments or solutions to those challenges.

The winning submissions were able to clearly articulate a business challenge that an organization, either a non-profit or for-profit enterprise, working in low-income communities is striving to overcome. These are prominently included in the BoP e-Journal here.

First place, a prize of $2000, went to Joe Dougherty, Senior Manager – Financial Sector Development, from Emerging Markets Group, Ltd., who wrote about an innovative business model that would make veterinary services available to poor farmers in Zambia. Using a holistic approach, this business model addressed issues of trust and access between small cattle farmers and vets.

Second place and third places went to Ryan Kelley and Jeff Gangemi respectively, both students at the Johnson School at Cornell University. Ryan Kelley (MBA ’09) highlighted the success of a rural radio network in Madagascar through its partnership model with multiple stakeholders and its transition from a non-profit model to a for-profit model.

Jeff Gangemi (MBA ’09) explored the challenges and costs faced by U.S. immigrants when accessing mainstream banking services. He highlights a licensable remittance processing platform as a solution to integrate the unbanked and underserved immigrant population into mainstream banking.