To celebrate 30 years of promoting youth leadership in 2011, AIESEC India will be hosting an event in Mumbai on Saturday, April 30th. The India Youth to Business Forum brings young people and business people together to discuss global trends. This year’s theme is Building a Young and Enterprising India. » Continue reading “30 Years of AIESEC India”
In Forbes, Eva Pereira makes the distinction between “opportunity” entrepreneurs and “necessity” entrepreneurs. This is the difference between someone creating a technology start-up and selling street food. Growth happens by investing in the “opportunity” entrepreneurs.
Pereira writes:
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a non-profit research organization, economic growth is not driven by these “necessity” entrepreneurs, who decrease in number as the economy develops. The key to fostering growth is to support “opportunity” entrepreneurs, who choose to start new enterprises in response to market needs.
One of the key reasons this is true is because “opportunity” entrepreneurs create jobs, and many argue that job creation is the best way to stimulate and sustain economic growth. While “necessity” entrepreneurs create a job for themselves, the value is limited. » Continue reading “Moving Away from Necessity Entrepreneurship”
Dear Reader,
For most of modern history, technology has been the key differentiator between nations that prospered and the ones that didn’t. Nations that innovated and became early adapters of scientific advances flourished, ensuring better services and living standards for their citizenry.
Increasingly, however, social entrepreneurs are using technology to provide services to the underserved. This issue of Beyond Profit looks at how technology is being used for development, particularly of mobile phones to deliver services in some of the world’s poorest parts.
In her cover story “Top Up The World,” Abby Callard reports on the phenomenon of using the pre-paid mobile phone model to provide services such as clean energy and water in India and Kenya. Indeed, a recent report quoted in the story notes that more people in the world today have access to a mobile phone than to an electrical grid, and that most people with a mobile phone can’t get healthcare services. » Continue reading “The Other Tech Revolution”
This story originally appeared in our April 21, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Pre-paid mobile phone services are reaching markets that other technologies have not yet been able to penetrate. How can this model be leveraged in other areas of development?
For those at the bottom of the pyramid, income is not a certain entity. No fixed amount is deposited into their bank accounts – should those even exist – at the end of the month. Their income is changing—from month to month, week to week, even day to day.
Which begs the question: if a borrower’s cash flow is so uncertain, why do so many companies attempting to serve that demographic insist on fixed repayment amounts?
At least one technology, invented in the 1990s, attempted to work around that problem: pre-paid mobile services that allowed people with variable incomes and/or poor credit to use cell phones. Such consumers made an upfront payment of only as much as they could afford in return for wireless services. » Continue reading “Top Up the World”
This story originally appeared in our April 21, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Ajay Chaturvedi, Founder and Chairman of the Gurgaon-based HarVa, spoke to Beyond Profit about harnessing value in rural India to promote self-sustainable livelihoods.
What does HarVa do?
HarVa is a unique and first of its kind rural enterprise focused on all women rural XPOs (including BPOs, LPOs, KPOs and MPOs), student helpdesks, medical helpdesks, community farming and renewable sources of energy. Our mission is to create value in rural India where little or none exists. The eventual goal is to be able to create value and then harness it rather than basing growth completely on selling.
What is the HarVa business model and what makes it unique?
The business model is unique since it focuses on value creation in rural India. We employ the people who need it the most and are unable to get similar opportunities. (Our) major focus over the past decade has been on tapping the potential of rural India by tapping into the buying potential of the people. Where there was no potential was enabled by a microfinance loan. However, little has been done to create the much-needed value based on annuity income for rural folk. » Continue reading “Harnessing Village Value”
This story originally appeared in our April 21, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Mobile money has been heralded as one way to leapfrog traditional banking for those at the bottom of the pyramid. We look at five countries that have wholeheartedly embraced the technology.
1. Kenya
Not only does Vodafone’s Safaricom serve more than 12 million through its M-PESA system, Kenya is also home to three other mobile money providers. Organizations are utilizing this technology to help women plan for pregnancy expenses and help farmers secure crop insurance. At the end of 2010, US$400 million—29% of the country’s GDP—was travelling through the M-PESA system each month. According to the Mobile Money Exchange website, while only 10% of the country could access finance, nearly 60% had access to a cell phone. » Continue reading “Where Mobile Money Matters”
This story originally appeared in our April 21, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
In a soon-to-be published study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB, 15,000 people in seven Indian states were interviewed about their Internet usage. What does India’s rural Internet landscape look like?
Projected percentage increase in active Internet users in rural India this year, reaching 24 million users, by December 2011.
This story originally appeared in our April 21, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Assigning all citizens a unique identification number can create a framework for mobile money in India.
The first of India’s unique identification numbers was assigned on September 10, 2010, in Maharashtra, and half of the country is expected to receive a number by 2014. While the project, driven by the Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDAI), has the goal of providing identity cards, it also has implications for mobile money.
Registrants with Aadhaar – the project’s name – have the option to link their bank accounts to the 12-digit number, which effectively allows them to use that number and biometric card data instead of credit cards in certain places. People can also open an Aadhaar-linked account when registering for the number. According to UIDAI, 80% of the 4.2 million residents with a UID number have expressed interest in opening a new bank account. » Continue reading “Banking on UID”
This story originally appeared in our April 21, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Artoo’s founder talks about how to reduce microfinance interest rates by reducing operating costs not profits.
By Sameer Segal
We often wonder why the world’s most intuitive technology isn’t available to the masses. Why aren’t iPhone like interfaces available to low-income first-time technology users? Why isn’t enterprise software as slick and easy-to-use as Facebook?
Just like how business models aimed at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) have to be truly innovative to achieve any success, technology supporting such businesses needs to be completely re-imagined, too. The innovation need not lie in any single element of technology, but the success will definitely depend on how various elements are strung together. I personally believe that consumer electronics is going to play a big role in determining the success of any solution. » Continue reading “Technology for the Masses”
Greg Mortenson’s bestseller Three Cups of Tea has inspired a US$100,000* donation from U.S. President Barack Obama to Mortenson’s non-profit, sold more than 4 million copies, been translated into more than a dozen languages and is required reading for U.S. soldiers heading to Afghanistan.
But are certain stories in the book fabricated?
According to a report aired last Sunday by 60 Minutes, they are. I’m not going to get into each allegation here, but what’s more troubling are the allegations against Mortenson’s non-profit, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), which he founded to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The allegations made by the 60 Minutes’ report include the fact that in its 14 years of operation, CAI has released only one audited financial statement. The segment also said that the organization spends more money domestically than it sends abroad. » Continue reading “Lessons in Transparency from Greg Mortenson”
