Tag Archives: Sustainable ventures

The Blue Sweater a book by Acumen Fund founder Jacqueline Novogratz

Posted on May 11, 2009 | 2 comments

I had gotten a copy of Acumen Fund founder, Jacqueline Novogratz’s, book “The Blue Sweater” a couple of months ago and had kept promising myself that I would read it. Finally as I was leaving on a short trip to India, I threw it in my bag hoping to get to it during my visit. As the long 15 plus hour trip from Newark to Bombay stretched before me, I settled myself in as best as I could and opened the book expecting to read a few pages and then sleep as much as possible for the rest of the flight.

Once I started reading I was hooked. Before I knew it I had plowed through the entire volume. This is an extraordinary and powerful book. My personal interest in social entrepreneurship, particularly in solving issues in the developing world, had led me to peruse many books in the field – from the seminal one by David Bornstein to Jeff Sachs and Prof. Yunus. Each provided a perspective on development with solutions and suggestions. Yet somehow this book was different. Continue reading →

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Posted in BOP, bottom of the pyramid, Health, Information Technology, international development, Investment, micro-finance, Philanthropy, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development, venture philanthropy

Tagged Acumen Fund, BOP, Health, Information Technology, international development, micro-finance, Philanthropy, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social entrepreneurship, Social Impact, social Innovation, Social Investment, Sustainable ventures, venture philanthropy

Jacqueline Novogratz – Legatum Lecture at MIT

Posted on April 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

We are a connected world said Jacqueline as she described the story of her blue sweater, also the title of her recently published book. Once discarded by her at Goodwill, it turned up 25 years later in Rwanda where she found it on a boy in the countryside.

Speaking at the Legatum Center’s Lecture series at MIT, she described the innovative work of Acumen fund and how it helps build social solutions through its venture philanthropy.

She prefaced her talk by some of her observations from her work helping to build enterprises around the world that she undertook since her time in Rwanda.

Dignity is more important than wealth for the human spirit.
Traditional models of charity won’t solve problems of poverty.
Markets can’t solve poverty. 100 Million people went back into poverty last year and that is what happens when you only rely on market forces to solve these problems.
What is needed is patient capital that will address these problems

Continue reading →

Two social visionaries from India

Posted on April 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

We were pleased to have Vibha Krishnamurthy and Ashish Karamchandani visit us in Boston on Sunday.

Vibha Krishnamurthy is the founder of Ummeed, (http://www.ummeed.org ) a first-of-its kind center addressing the needs of the estimated 35 million children in India with developmental disabilities. After completing her fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital, Vibha moved back to Bombay determined to bring world class care to disabled children in India. She founded Ummeed in 2001 and it now supports over 1000 patient visits a week. Ummeed provides early diagnosis of development disabilities followed by in-house professional, medical and therapeutic care. It allows families to continue proper care and therapy at home by providing training and education programs for parents. For her tireless efforts to bring care to the disadvantaged, Vibha was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2007. http://www.ashoka.org/fellow/4900

Vibha’s husband, Ashish Karamchandani is a visionary in his own right. Ashish returned to India to head Monitor’s Indian consulting office where he spearheaded an effort within Monitor to address the challenges of global poverty with market based solutions. He was successful in starting a new area of research within Monitor, Monitor Inclusive Markets, (http://www.mim.monitor.com) that he now leads. The group has brought scientific and business approaches to providing market-based solutions and has initiated financially-sustainable enterprises to address the needs of the bottom 60% of the income pyramid in India. Their work has identified housing as one of the key areas where market based solutions can alter the social and economic landscape of the country. Ashish has recently published a comprehensive report “Emerging Markets, Emerging Models,” based on their solid fact-based research. Continue reading →

Interview on Social Entrepreneurship

Posted on April 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

I was recently interviewed by New England’s largest e-magazine for South Asians, lokvani.com about my views on social entrepreneurship. You can find the full interview at their site here.

“The passage of the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act this week marks the coming of age of Social Entrepreneurship (SE)” says Raj Melville, who is one of the co-founders of the TIE-SE SIG. He talked to Lokvani about this concept which combines for-profit and non-profit work by entrepreneurs to address a social issue in a sustainable and scalable manner. It has now become the new buzz word. (from Lokvani.com)

Bill Drayton – Social Entrepreneurship’s Rock Star

Posted on March 4, 2009 | 1 comment

I was lucky to attend the HBS SE Conf 10^th Anniversary Keynote Panel. The panel consisted of Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka and granddaddy of social entrepreneurship, David Gergen, presidential advisor emeritus and ubiquitous political commentator, Jon Greenblatt, founder of Ethos water, and Clara Miller, CEO of Nonprofit fund. More on the panel in a later post.

The hall was packed. Over a thousand people filled the room, lined the wall and crowded the passageways. It was great to see the energy behind this. Continue reading →