BoP Opportunities in China

Recent interesting post on  the NextBillion Blog: What are some BoP ventures and issues in the world’s most populous nation? China’s extreme income inequality, rich heritage and diverse geographies make for intriguing social venture opportunities during its time of neck-breaking economic growth. While China has become the world’s third-largest economy, 627 million Chinese still lived [...]

Mobile 2.0 applications: Potential use among BOP in emerging Asia

Posted by Nirmali Sivapragasam on Lirne Asia An article by an Indian journalist who attended the recently concluded Expert Forum in Islamabad, summarizes various “Mobile 2.0? initatives deployed by emerging South and Southeast Asian countries in recent years. “Mobile 2.0? applications can be described as those which offer services which are more-than-voice, such as payments, money [...]

Innovations Series Part 1: Rickshaw’s

Cycle rickshaws are widely used in cities of South and Southeast Asia and rickshaw driving provides essential employment for recent immigrants from rural areas, generally impoverished men. One study in Bangladesh showed that rickshaw driving was connected with some increases in income for poor agricultural laborers who moved to urban areas, but that the extreme [...]

1st job center for slum dwellers in Bangladesh (the world?)

The the highly successful Dhaka Project is taking a bold step in 2010 by setting up the first job center for slum dwellers in Bangladesh (the world?). The Dhaka Project belives, that the cycle of poverty can only be broken if parents have enough income to sustain a meaningful lifestyle for them and their family. [...]

SourcePilani – bringing the BPO to rural India

Introducing SourcePilani, a company that is bringing the concept of BPO to rural India, starting off from the small town of Pilani in Rajasthan. SourcePilani provides high quality and low cost BPO services by leveraging the hitherto untapped talent that rural India has to offer to the growing Indian economy. In addition to providing employment [...]

Bringing web intelligence to offline low-literacy communities

Great new approach to brining information to the BoP, published by Springwise: Proving that the internet’s information doesn’t always have to appear on-screen, Question Box brings the web’s intelligence to offline communities. At the heart of the venture is a solar-powered intercom box that features a large green button. By pressing the button, a user [...]