NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Lok Capital Invests $3 million in Rural BPO

Lok Capital venture fund on Thursday said it has invested $3 million (Rs.1.44 crore) in RuralShores Business Services Ltd, a rural business process outsourcing (BPO) firm. "RuralShores will use the second round of funding to expand its operations in the rural BPO space for business development," Lok Capital partner Ganesh Rengaswamy said in a statement here. With 10 back off...

Source

Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

From No Doctor to E-Doctors in Rural India

There aren’t too many doctors in the village of Hari Ke Kalan, in the Punjab region of northern India. But for $1, residents who bicycle to a new health clinic in town can get an appointment with a physician who appears on a large-screen television, beamed in over broadband Internet. The clinic, built by a startup called Healthpoint Services, is one of a network of eight "e-health points" that the for-profit company has built in India as part of a growing effort by entrepreneurs to ...

Source

MIT Technology Review (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Tags

Base of the Pyramid

G20 Faces Obstacles in its Efforts to Spread Good Farming Practices

Spreading good ideas and practices in farming sounds like a simple enough goal, but can be immensely complicated not just on a global level but also locally. Ahead of the G20 meeting in Montpellier, France, on agricultural research and development , which begins on Monday, Mark Holderness gives a telling example from his time working in Bangladesh. He urged female farmers to plant cleaner rice ...

Source

Guardian.co.uk (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

India?s ’Biggest Entrepreneurial Event’ Set to Take Off Sept 30

New Delhi: The power of entrepreneurship and innovation to transform India into one of the leading economies of the world will be visible in full measure at the TiEcon Delhi 2011. The entrepreneurial event, among the biggest in Asia, begins on September 30 at Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi. The annual flagship event of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Delhi-NCR chapter, will see over 1500 attendees listen to the first CK Prahalad Memorial Lecture, set up in memory of the renowned Michigan Uni...

Source

Northern Voices Online (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Report Stresses Need to Identify the ’Poor’ in India

In India the poor are visible everywhere in villages, hamlets, in forestland or degraded lands, along coastal regions, in the mountains, in urban centres and in industrial areas. For all the visible signs of poverty, there is a huge chunk of these which are invisible. It comes back to the question of what makes the poor, poor. This is the question that should plague those who are at the forefront of polic...

Source

Medindia.net (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Microcredit and Lamia Karim’s ’Women in Debt in Bangladesh’

Taj Hashmi in the first part of his two-part review A report by the Government of Bengal in the 1930s revealed that a poor peasant from Mymensingh district in eastern Bengal (Bangladesh since 1971) had told a land revenue official in 1929: "My father, Sir, was born in debt, grew in debt and died in debt. I have inherited my father’s debt and my son will inherit mine." Following the introduction of microcredit, glorified as microfinance by its local and international promoters, ...

Source

The Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Health Tests at Your Doorstep

KOCHI: At daybreak, around 40 women in the city set out on their rounds to do medical tests. They conduct routine tests for over 750 persons that are quite cost-effective. These women are part of the Saantwanam project, a poverty-alleviation as well as health-oriented programme organised jointly by the Health Action by People (Thiruvananthapuram), Kudumbashree, and State Bank of India. The women visit houses and take instant readings of blood glucose(...

Source

IBN Live (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

IIT Fest to Focus on Environment, Rural Aid, Empowering Rural Folk

CHENNAI: This year, Shaastra, the annual technical festival of the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras, will be all about saving the environment and empowering people in rural areas to do the same. It will be held from September 28 to October 2. The Shaastra Social Innovation Challenge, a new event, is expected to have a direct impact on rural India. The problem statement includes designing a solar cooker to replace traditional wood-based cooking and designing a fully autonomous rob...

Source

The Times of India (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia