A fan of experiential learning, I entered a session called “Would You Survive? Base of the Pyramid Urban Slum Simulation” with very little knowledge of what would unfold or how my fellow conference attendees would transform around me.

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By Jonathan Kalan, Founder of The (BoP) Project. This is the second installment from The (BoP) Project, a journey to discover, document, and share stories of remarkable social entrepreneurs, enterprises and innovations across east Africa. Michael Mwakilasa is not your typical Tanzanian entrepreneur. With a beaming smile, warm handshake, and a half-New-York, half-Tanzanian accented “Hey man!” [...]

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This post is part of a year-end series by MBA students at California College of the Arts’ Design MBA Program. Read more about our annual partnership here. By Eric Persha Capitalism. Close your eyes and say it again… Capitalism. What images does the word evoke in your mind? For most of the developed world there [...]

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By Jonathan Kalan Four billion people on this planet live in relative poverty. While each of their situations are unique, most of these 4 billion people share a similar set of economic constraints, collectively placing them at the Base of the Economic Pyramid (BoP). Among their daily struggles, they face significant unmet needs, a dependence [...]

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By David Schafran As 3G sweeps a nation with over 670 million mobile phone connections, and Android phones become increasingly available, the opportunity for high value mobile enabled services is tremendous. Two industries that have already tapped into the ubiquity of mobile phones in a big way are entertainment and financial services, with applications ranging [...]

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By Abby Callard, Beyond Profit So, you have an innovative business model that you think will improve the lives of millions of people living on less than US$2 a day? Next step: finding capital. Finding, and maintaining, capital is one of the most challenging aspects of running any new enterprise, and businesses operating in the [...]

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By C. Sala Hewitt 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the equally venerated and vilified concept of “Base of the Pyramid” first proposed in an academic paper by then business academic CK Prahalad.  The concept gained considerable steam in business circles to become one of the millennium’s business game changers.  “Base of the Pyramid” refers [...]

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By Suzanne York As a nation of 1.1 billion people and growing, with a robust economy, India is a crucial player on the global climate stage.  Will it move from its current reliance on fossil fuels, especially coal, or will it take steps to a clean energy future, and balance an expanding economy and populace [...]

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By Bill Abrams I have a suggestion for the U.N. Next September, when the General Assembly begins its session, don’t meet in Manhattan. Instead, go to Persuguié, Mali. If you want to inspire the world to take dramatic and courageous action to cut global poverty in half, as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aspire to [...]

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While the field of impact investing started small, it has been gaining momentum in recent years.  With increased scale has come increased interest on behalf of larger institutional investors who realize the potential returns available in this space.  Initially, large raises were focused on microfinance with its proven returns.  Several companies, including Ignia, Elevar Equity, [...]

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Abby Callard, Beyond Profit This is the first post in a three week long series from Beyond Profit and Triple Pundit that will explore innovative business models aimed at tapping the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) market. More than 3 billion people worldwide live on less than US$2.50 a day—less than a morning coffee at [...]

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This post is the part of a special series on Clean Energy and the BoP leading up to the launch of the report “Power to the People” in Mumbai on the 28th of September 2010. The first article of this series can be found here: Power to the People Part 1 The launch announcement of the Global Alliance [...]

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According to Lionel Barber, the Editor-in-Chief of the Financial Times, “The financial crisis has necessitated a re-assessment of the way in which banks and investment houses operate.” The UK-based publication holds an annual sustainable banking conference, recognizing the banks and financial institutions that exhibit leadership and innovation in integrating social, environmental, and CSR issues into [...]

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The concept of for-profit philanthropy does not center solely around revenue-generating entities. Part of the schema is a transformational approach to business whereby funds are re-allocated toward the greater good. This includes non-profit companies whose services are geared specifically toward social innovations that are helping to alleviate some of the biggest issues facing our world. [...]

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Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun are hard at work figuring out how to bring light to the more than 1.5 billion in this world without it. In 2006, Sam, now the CEO, and Ned, the President, founded D.light Design (www.dlightdesign.com) with the assistance of classmates in an entrepreneurship class at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. [...]

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According to Walter Stahel — one of the founders of the sustainability movement and original thinkers behind the Cradle-to-Cradle design philosophy – social ecology is one of the five pillars of sustainability. He defined social ecology as encompassing “…the fabric of societal structures, including peace and human rights, dignity and democracy, employment and social integration, [...]

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Have a look at this article on CNN: “Solar Power Makes Tiny Village Beam“. It’s a fantastic story featureing not only environmental progress, but human happiness and bottom of the pyramid economic progress. But if you spend any time reading TreeHugger, this blog, or many others, the story isn’t a whole lot unlike the dozens [...]

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The “Bottom of the Pyramid” concept refers to the vast market of people with minimal income individually, but massive market potential if taken as a collective. It’s also associated with sustainability in the sense that serving this market with affordable products can serve to better their lives without deepening their debts, as well as helping [...]

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We’ve written here before about some of the green initiatives that the SC Johnson Wax company has been initiating. Good4Business brought to my attention something new: The “Public Report 2005“. Among the highlights is an outline about how the company is partnering directly with small farmers in Kenya to ensure a supply of certain ingredients, [...]

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