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 [3] 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. [4]
First place, a prize of $2000, went to Joe Dougherty [5], 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 [6] and Jeff Gangemi [7] 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.