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“Poorism” in India – Development Through Enterprise or Lower Class Exploitation?
Browsing the morning headlines, I came across a startling and at first disturbing trend in the Indian tourism industry.? I had just finished reading a nice article on how the government plans to operate eco-tours of rural Jharkhand when I found a Guardian piece describing one community...
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Less smoke, no fire
About a month ago JP wrote about fuel efficient cookers , but they make me so giddy that I just had to write about them too, with a few fresh examples. ? If you’re new to the concept and hear “fuel efficient cooker,” you’ll probably think “Great! Sounds...
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BOP Roundup – News and Stories of Note
As I mentioned yesterday, I?ve been MIA while working on a BOP mapping project that will be publicly unveiled on June 12 at the IADB conference. Side note ? have you seen the speaker list? Cardinal Maradiaga, Carlos Slim, Hernando de Soto, Nicholas Negroponte, Portia Simpson Miller, Bill...
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Stop the Bus!
Riding the 42 to work last week, I was surprised to see a poster advertising a remittance service offered by Home Depot; familiar orange and white logo, copy half written in English, half in Spanish. A multi-national retailer testing the remittances waters? A lure to bring in new customers?...
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Back From Mapping the BOP
I?ve had a couple emails from NextBillion readers, wondering why I haven?t been blogging much of late. Despite their pleas to the contrary, I?m back. In all seriousness, I?d like to update you all on why I?ve been so conspicuously absent from these pages. You may remember that the...
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This Week in SME Investing
I?ve just posted up several recent news stories about financing for SME development. Most of these came from the Business in Development Network, which promotes poverty reduction through entrepreneurship in developing countries. The group maintains a great newsroom for those interested in...
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- Education
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- academia
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100-Dollar Laptop: UN Secretary General?s Office shouldn?t be used for exploiting the poor
My eyes were stuck to the news that the UN Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan, while launching a 100-Dollar Laptop, on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia, said ?the invention is an impressive technical achievement. The project promises to provide flexible...
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Innovation Blowback
In his 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen showed that an upstart with an innovation that disrupts existing business models can beat out the big guys nearly every time. What’s more, he said, venerable companies seal their doom by...
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