Category Archives: Poverty

Ashoka’s “Tapping Youth Innovation Challenge”

Posted on February 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

Ashoka has launched a youth movement called Ashoka’s Youth Venture (http://genv.net/) to help young people to design and launch their own lasting social ventures. (More on this in a later post). As part of their efforts to spur innovation, they have teamed up with a number of organizations to hold youth oriented social innovation competitions.

The latest one is “Tapping Youth Innovation, a Water Campaign” where they are looking for young innovators’ ideas on how to solve some of the challenges to clean water and sanitation for people living in poverty.  The challenge is accepting entries until March 22, 2009 which coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally) happens to be World Water Day!

Here is a blurb about their competition for people who might be interested. Continue reading →

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Posted in Hygiene, Poverty, Rural Health, Sanitation, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, Water, water and sanitation, Water resources

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ForSE 2008 – Speakers and Panels for conference

Posted on September 28, 2008 | Leave a comment

We have a terrific line up of speakers and panels for ForSE 2008 on October 10th at Boston University. See the list below. Do make sure you have registered as there are very few seats left.

To register go to: http://www.bu.edu/forse

Click on the ForSE 2008 link.

Opening Plenary Panel 9.00 to 10.45 am

  • Nishith Acharya, Executive Director, Deshpande Foundation.
  • Naveen Jha, Director of Programs, Deshpande Center for Social Entrepreneurship
  • Meenakshi Verma Agrawal, Program Officer, Global Exchange Programs, Deshpande Foundation

Closing Keynote 4.00 to 4.30 pm

  • Keynote Speaker Gerald Chertavian, CEO and Founder, Year Up. Recipient of the 2003 Social Entrepreneurship Award by the Manhattan Institute.


Track Themed Panels from 11.15 to 12.15

Adapting to Climate Change

  • Lynne Carter, Director, Adaptation Network
  • Paul H. Kirshen, Research Professor, Director, Water, Systems, Science and Society, Tufts University
  • Missy Stults, Sr. Program Officer, Northeast, ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives)

Mobile Solutions for the Masses

  • Jhonatan Rotberg, Founder, Director, Next Billion Network
  • Amir Alexander Hasson, CEO, United Villages
  • Barry Vercoe, Professor, MIT & Advisor OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)

Beyond Microfinance: Opportunities for change

  • Chandni Ohri, Regional Director, South Asia, Grameen Foundation
  • Sarita Gupta, Vice President, Women’s World Banking
  • Tanya Palit, Project Manager, Grameen America
  • Dr. Jeffrey Blander, Executive Director, Bienmoyo Foundation, Course Director, Harvard Health Science & Technology Division

Building a Sustainable Food Supply

  • Kristen McCormack, Faculty Director, Public and Nonprofit Management Program, Boston University School of Management
  • Florence Reed, Founder, Sustainable Harvest International
  • Margaret Williams, Executive Director, The Food project

Cultivating a Generation – Engaging Young Entrepreneurs

  • Xing Hu, Youth Venture, Ashoka.org
  • Alvona Cunningham, Education Manager, JA Academy and Scholars Program
  • Clare McCully, Executive Director, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship

Case Studies 1.00 to 2.30 pm

Environment

  • Case Presenter: Mishi Jaggi and Bob Beauchamp, Nano Decopier, JMD Manufacturing
  • Case discussion moderated by: Peter Russo, Executive-In-Residence/Senior Lecturer, Strategy and Policy Department, Director, Entrepreneurship Programs – ITEC, Boston University School of Management

Mobile Solutions for the Masses

  • Case Presenter: Click Diagnostic
  • Case discussion moderated by: Tilak Subrahmanian

Beyond Microfinance: Opportunities for change

  • Case Presenter: Eric Melin, Founder, Philanthropist.org
  • Case discussion moderated by: Ramesh Advani, Vice President of Finance, India Operations, Fidelity Investments

Building a Sustainable Food Supply

  • Case Presenter: Lydia K. Bergen, Associate Director, Strategy and Outreach, Sustainable Fisheries Initiative, New England Aquarium
  • Case discussion moderated by: Barry Horwitz, Horwitz & Company LLC

Cultivating a Generation – Engaging Young Entrepreneurs

  • Case Presenter: Julie Nessen, Co-founder & Executive Director, Young Entrepreneurs Alliance
  • Case discussion moderated by: Paul McManus, Director International Programs, ITEC, Boston University

Sustainable Ventures for non-profits

  • Case Presenter: Roger Wellington, Director, Abundant Table Enterprises & Susan Miskell, Business Operations Manager, Abundant Table Enterprises
  • Case Discussion moderator to be finalized

Track Themed Panels from 2.45 to 3.45 pm

Mobile Solutions for the Masses

  • David Reich, Founder & CEO, Assured Labor
  • Vishwanath Anantraman, Co-Founder, Dimagi

Cultivating a Generation – Engaging Young Entrepreneurs

  • Barton Kunstler, Author, The Hothouse Effect
  • Preeta Banerjee, Assistant Professor of Strategy, International Business School, Brandeis University
  • Joshua Schuler, Executive Director, Lemelson-MIT Program, MIT

Sustainable Ventures for non-profits

  • Tim Prestero, Founder and CEO, Design Than Matters
  • Alex Chisholm, Executive Director and Founder, Learning Games Network
  • Therese Ellis, CEO, Common Impact
  • Andrew Motta, Operations Director, Artists For Humanity


Workshops – from 2.45 to 3.45 pm

Careers in Social Entrepreneurship

  • Presented by Marty Rod, Director of Entrepreneur Outreach, Ashoka

Marketing for Social Entrepreneurs

  • Presented by Beverly Schwartz, Vice President and Director of Global Marketing, Ashoka

Strategic Philanthropy: Implications of Recent Trends

  • Presented by Anne Radday, Philanthropy Researcher, Social Innovation Forum

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Posted in Conference, Education, environment, Food, Information Technology, micro-finance, mobile technology, non-profit, OLPC, Philanthropy, Poverty, Service, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainability, sustainable development

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Beyond Microfinance: Opportunities for Change

Posted on September 20, 2008 | 1 comment

Another Track in the upcoming ForSE 2008: Forum for Social Entrepreneurs

Beyond Microfinance: Opportunities for Change

Microfinance, as demonstrated by Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus, provides disadvantaged entrepreneurs with small loans to run their businesses and eventually help lift them out of poverty. This has become a wide spread phenomenon all over the world encouraging millions of families out of poverty.

What’s next? There is a huge business opportunity for both, investment in the MFIs and providing other business services to these micro-enterprises at the bottom of the pyramid.

While commercial banks are satisfying the demand for capital to the MFIs , the social entrepreneurs with social business ideas will hopefully fill the gap by providing services to the poor entrepreneurs to run and scale their businesses successfully. Prof. Yunus’ has exemplified this concept of a social business with a collaborative effort with Dannon in Bangladesh, that brings low cost nutritious meals to the poor while employing local farmers and citizens. This is a win-win situation where the commercial banks, MFIs, social businesses and the aspiring entrepreneurs all profit!

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Posted in BOP, bottom of the pyramid, Conference, Education, micro-finance, microfinance, Poverty, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development

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Adapting to Climate Change

Posted on September 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

We have over 80 people registered already for ForSE 2008: Forum for Social Entrepreneurs. Click here to register as we are going to quickly reach the limit of our 180 discounted admissions.

Here is the description of another one of the six tracks

Adapting to Climate Change

Rising global temperatures and erratic local weather patterns are of growing concern all around the world. Scientists worldwide have confirmed the reality of climate change and the impact of humans in increasing Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. International treaties such as the ‘Kyoto Protocol’, state adopted legislations and activities at the local level are focused on acting to mitigate the effects of global warming. By changing policies, processes and habits, these actions may help the general public to gradually reduce the emission of GHGs and thus curb the severity of the impending climate change.

While it is important to mitigate climate change and its impact, positive results will be seen only after several decades. In the meantime, climate change and a rise in global temperatures will continue to occur, with changes in weather, ecology and environment impacting our daily lives on earth. Therefore it is important to adopt two strategies – mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Several entrepreneurial spirits have taken up the challenge and established a creative response to the dilemma of high energy prices, high demand and low supplies concurring with global warming. This track will present an expert panel that will discuss strategies for adaptation to climate change and how social and business entrepreneurs are supporting this effort.

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Posted in BOP, Conference, Education, environment, non-profit, Poverty, Social Ecosystem, social Innovation, sustainability, sustainable development, Waste, Water, Water resources

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Registration Opens for ForSE 2008-Forum for Social Entrepreneurs

Posted on September 10, 2008 | Leave a comment

In 2007, I helped found an annual conference on Social Entrepreneurship in partnership with Boston University and the Deshpande Foundation called the Forum for Social Entrepreneurship or ForSE for short. ForSE brings together social innovators with leading business professionals, investors, donors, government officials, academics, and students to facilitate the sharing of new technology and business ideas along with hard-earned management learnings to foster informed discussion and action on new social venture concepts. Continue reading →

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Posted in Conference, Education, environment, Health, Information Technology, international development, Micro-enterprises, micro-finance, mobile technology, non-profit, Poverty, Rural Development, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainability, sustainable development

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