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NextBillion News vol.14 April 23, 2006
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Where Business and Development Meet

[Contents]

1. NextBillion Nominated for Webby Award!

2. New Healthcare Activities on NextBillion

3. Profiles of Success at the BOP

4. Upcoming Event: Microfinance Technology Fair

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1. NextBillion Nominated for Webby Award!

We’re happy to announce that NextBillion.net has been nominated for Best Business Blog of 2006 in the 10th Annual Webby Awards! Hailed as the “Online Oscars” by Time Magazine, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality.

As a nominee for a Webby Award, NextBillion.net is eligible to win a People's Voice Award. Voting is open to the public until May 5th. Show your support of NextBillion.net by casting your vote today at http://peoplesvoice.webbyawards.com/login.mhtml. Winners will be announced May 9th.

We’re thrilled to be nominated--thank you for helping make NextBillion.net a success. We look forward to making the site even more useful to you in the coming year.


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2. New Healthcare Activities on NextBillion

A number of new activities have been added to NextBillion’s Activity Database (http://www.nextbillion.net/activitycapsule), including two that facilitate the delivery of healthcare services and information to rural areas using ICT technologies:

IKON Tele-radiology in Mali
Almost all radiologists in Mali are located in the capital Bamako, far away from where many x-rays are taken. The IKON project provides a solution for this problem, offering the possibility to send or receive radiology scans and diagnoses over the Internet. The direct beneficiaries of the project are the hospital staff and patients living in rural areas. The expected economic benefits are significant reductions on travel costs for patients, and improved use of local hospital facilities.

For more information, check out:
http://www.nextbillion.net/activitycapsule/2415

Digital Health Content in Ghana
The IICD has begun a project in rural Ghana that addresses the need to support and enhance community health work by providing contextually relevant information that can be used by field workers with their clients. Working with local communities, this research project is testing ways to help the ‘push’ for local content by building community capacities to create and distribute local knowledge on mother and child health in a digital format.

For more information, check out:
http://www.nextbillion.net/activitycapsule/2414


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3. Profiles of Success at the BOP

This past week, NextBillion profiled several initiatives that are finding real success in their efforts to enable development through enterprise:

PEOPLink/CatGen
PEOPLink is an organization that helps SMEs in developing countries participate in e-commerce. To this end, the group has created CatGen (for “Catalog Generator”), an open-source software program designed to meet all of a company’s e-commerce needs. Now in its 4th revision, the software enables any enterprise anywhere to create its own web catalog. It operates off-line for low bandwidth situations and generates catalogs with many sophisticated features such as credit card payments via PayPal, and the ability to print paper catalogs or burn them to CDs.

Read more at: http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/04/13/success-at-the-intersection-of-globalization-and-the-internet

Enterprise for a Sustainable World (E4SW)
E4SW is a recently formed non-profit group that grew out of the BOP Center of Excellence based at Cornell University. Headed by Stuart Hart (author of Capitalism at the Crossroads), the group undertakes action research, education, and organizational change for corporations (as well as governments and NGOs) interested in transformation toward sustainability.

Read more at: http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/04/14/is-base-of-the-pyramid-mainstream-two-sites-suggest-yes

Acumen Fund
The Acumen Fund creates and supports sustainable enterprises that deliver affordable healthcare, water, and housing to the poor. The organization, which just celebrated its five year anniversary, believes that the best way to solve social problems is through market-oriented approaches that begin with understanding who the poor are and then working with them to create effective business models.

Read more at: http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/04/12/a-successful-new-model-for-enterprise-development


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4. Upcoming Event: Microfinance Technology Fair

On Tuesday, April 25, USAID's After Hours Seminar Series will host its first Microfinance Technology Fair. The seminar will feature live demonstrations of four technologies currently implemented in the field, including PortaCredit, G-Cash, RTS, and Mifos.

WRI's Rob Katz will help introduce the presenters, sharing research, trends, and experience from WRI's Digital Dividends and Development Through Enterprise projects. The Microfinance Technology Fair is open to the public and free; send an e-mail to FSSeminar@qedgroupllc.com to reserve a seat.

The event will take place at Chemonics International's Washington, D.C. offices starting at 4:00 pm.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.microlinks.org/ev_en.php?ID=9954_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC


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NextBillion News vol. 14 April 23, 2006

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Thank you,
Development Through Enterprise Team
World Resources Institute

http://www.nextbillion.net
http://www.wri.org
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