Authored by: Francisco Noguera

Are you interested in getting involved in social enterprise? In finding a job and build a career around it? Perhaps even starting a venture of your own or join one that is in early stage? 

If your answer to any of the above was yes, you'd probably be interested in knowing how you can best prepare yourself for it. What skills are critical to build a career that relates to the BoP, and what are the best ways to hone those? What opportunities are out there to get started? Where will future opportunities come from? Is it likely that large corporations will create more space for this kind of work? Or will those opportunities present themselves in early stage ventures in need to manage their growth?

Not easy waters to navigate, for sure... Exciting as it is, this space is evolving very rapidly and the answers to the questions above seem to be changing every day! As a good friend told me recently, tolerance to ambiguity may be the key skill for those of us interested in social enterprise. After all, if you're interested in a first-year associate program in management consulting, lots of hard work awaits you can bet with almost certainty that an MBA is the path to walk. What about social enterprise where there are no first-year associate programs? MBAs are "turning to social enterprise", some argue, but how must MBA programs evolve in order to keep up with an evolving industry?

OK, now let me ask YOU: What would you like to discuss if you had 90 minutes to spend with, not one, but three people who have built successful careers in this space? Next week at the Net Impact Conference I will have an opportunity to moderate such a conversation with Yasmina Zaidman from the Acumen Fund, Justin DeKoszmovszky from SC Johnson and Peter Eliassen, from VisionSpring. It's frankly a remarkable panel that represents a diverse set of perspectives of this space: the start-up/ early stage venture, the intermediary/ investor and the multinational corporation.

If you've read this far I'll assume that you are interested in exploring opportunities in this space and that you do have a bunch of questions you'd like to ask these interesting folks. Please chime in in the comments box below! That will help me as I continue to do my homework and prepare. I've been doing my homework reading some expert advice to make sure I as moderator add my two cents in making the panel useful, engaging and worth talking about after it's done. My role will definitely not be to ask my own questions... rather, it will be asking your questions. So, again... the comments box.  

If you'll be at the conference and are planning to attend the panel, rest assured that I will leave enough time for you to ask your questions outloud. Also rest assured that I look forward to meeting you there!    

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

I just got an email from our friends at Ashoka announcing the launch, just two days ago, of a venture that promises to disrupt and transform rural healthcare in India. Led by NextBillion co-founder and The Next 4 Billion lead author Al Hammond, the E Health Points are joint venture of Ashoka, the Naandi Foundation, the Government of the State of Punjab and and Healthpoint Services India Pvt. Ltd.

It's very exciting to hear about this launch and see the pictures of it in action. I've had the opportunity to work in and out with Al Hammond over the last 18 months and in several of our conversations this project was a dominant theme. His vision of bringing together technological and business model innovations to produce a disruptive new model for healthcare services in rural areas is now a reality. I'm already looking forward to hearing about the launch and the prospects of this venture in his own words. I'm sure he'll be looking forward to sharing these through NextBillion as well, so stay tuned.

For now, I want to extend my congratulations and best wishes to Al and the team that has led the charge in launching this pilot. If you wish to learn more about this project and its various components, I encourage you to read Al's earlier posts related to eHealth, the future of healthcare and community scale water treatment facilities. I also urge you to read the complete press release and take a look at the Flickr slideshow.

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

I'm back in Washington after four days in Maine attending Pop!Tech 2009: America Reimagined. You may have read some of my previous posts highlighting the work of the Social Innovation Fellows. I conducted three additional interviews whose notes will hopefully turn into blog posts some time later this week. Stay tuned for that.

I went through my notes last night and reflected on the ideas I was exposed to over the last few days, thinking about how the BoP idea was or wasn't present in the conversations at Pop!Tech, either explicitly (like in the work of many Social innovation Fellows, for instance) or woven in as an underlying trend that propels the conversation from within. Two speakers caught my attention due to their direct tie to the concept and practice of the Base of the Pyramid: Alec Ross and Esther Duflo.

Alec Ross leads the innovation efforts at the State Department. In essence, his role is understanding how emerging trends in areas like technology and social media can be used to advance the goals of US foreign policy. He delivered a crisp and concise talk that addressed what, in his words, is only "the first page of the first chapter of a new strategy for US foreign policy". The key words during his talk were "connectedness" and "empowerment". He addressed a number of innovations and trends in the space of mobile applications, drawing upon many of the ventures and resources that we often cite in the pages of NextBillion.

The fact that bottom up innovations like mobile money are scaling up is exciting and intriguing in its own right. Hearing about them from the man that sits next door from Hillary Clinton's office is promising in a whole new way. He encouraged the Pop!Tech audience to read The Economist's recent report on mobile money while letting us know that those were the tools through which the US is looking to shift its approach to foreign policy, moving from "repower" towards the "empowerment" of those living in developing countries. His speech was frank and humble, accompanied by an invitation to the community interested in the crux between innovation and development to share ideas with a State Department that is willing to listen and fully aware that innovations at the BoP are a trend governments and policy makers must thrive to work with, rather than shape through regulations.  

Esther Duflo's intervention was also highly relevant to the NextBillion community. She spoke about her work leading the MIT Poverty Action Lab and her efforts to understand what works and what doesn't in the fight against poverty. In particular, she invited the audience to be "modest and humble" in addressing the question of poverty alleviation. Breaking the complex issue of poverty into smaller challenges may be a useful way to address this issue, she argued. "If we think about the issue of poverty as a LEGO, we have can then focus on getting it right about each individual building block and how they can later be put together". She also suggested randomized experimentation as a method to conduct a rigorous assessment of what works and what doesn't within those "building blocks".

The talks of Mr. Ross and Ms. Duflo were complimentary. Individually and collectively, their conclusions and recommendations are applicable and relevant not only to the idea and practice of BoP but also to many of the other innovations, breakthroughs and predictions discussed during Pop!Tech. Rather than a conference track in itself, my feeling is that Base of the Pyramid and grassroots innovations are seen as mainstream and as one of the features that characterize the state of our society. 

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

My friend Monika is a designer. She's curious, restless even, always thinking about the next project and about ways to make them valuable for her local community. She currently doesn't practice design but she's looking for ways to get involved and make her creative thinking something she can devote her life to and a valuable resource to society. Monika is not alone. She's part of a larger movement that sees design and creativity not as a discipline aimed at creating new stuff and gadgets, but as a way of thinking, an approach to turn social challenges into design and innovation opportunities.

Today, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H Design, a Pop!Tech 2009 Social Innovation Fellow and a key character in the community interested in the nexus between design thinking and social impact. She is a really fast talker... and I'm a really slow typer. Hence, I took my notebook and tried to capture the main takeaways of our conversation. Here are th highlights of our conversation briken into three main section that underscore her thoughts on localizing efforts, markets and scale and, finally, her new book Design Revolution.

Localizing design: "I'd rather look at my own backyard"

We sat down. We shook hands. I introduced myself and NextBillion and went straight into arguing that her approach had enormous potential in my native Latin America, Africa and Asia, the places we most often analyze and write about in this website. Like Jason yesterday, Emily was quick in politely pointing my attention to the fact that the US faces enough social challenges to capture all of her attention at the moment.

Perhaps it's the theme of the conference, but this has been a common thread throughout my experience at Pop!Tech: a constant pledge for localizing efforts and creating tools, approaches and information that enable local communities to come up with solutions for their own problems, plus a growing interest for social innovation that takes place in the United States.

The key of Project H's approach and its local chapters is deep immersion into the circumstances of local communities. Partnerships with local organizations play a central role in the process of identifying social challenges where design may provide a viable solution. An example of these partnerships is the one Project H developed with the Downtown Women's Center of Los Angeles, where a solution for the needs of street dwellers has been developed. She also used the same example to explain how Project H's thinking begins by identifying a problem, not envisioning a solution.

Starting "with a need in mind, not knowing what the final solution will be" can be a lengthy process, particularly in terms of building trust among local actors and creating dynamics that allow communities to incorporate a problem-solving discipline that prevails even after the Project H design team is gone. "That's when you know you've been successful", said Emily, "when projects keep going even after we're gone".

I thanked Emily for her push back on my point about developing countries. It's really not about solutions and cool approaches being exported from this country to those across oceans. It's about making information available and about educating local actors in the art of observation and design thinking to make local challenges local opportunities for design and enterprise.

"1 million people doing something is better that 1 thing done a million times"

Our conversation quickly moved into the role of markets and enterprise in making these solutions sustainable. "That's one of our main challenfges", Emily admitted. "I would argue that a social need implies the existence of a market... but since we start from the need and not the market, we often have a challenge figuring out the business model or subsidy that can make a given solution sustainable and over time".

That's when the magic word came to my mind of course: "Scalable". But I told you Emily talks fast. Before I even said it, she told me "I truly believe scalability is not the inescapable answer". "I believe it's more important to move a million people to do one thing than make one thing and copy it a million times". Powerful, yes, but she wasn't done just yet... "what needs to be scalable is access to information and tools. A way through which people can feel as part of a community. A way through which they can get answer to any question they may have about a project".

Nothing to add here, really. You may agree or not but It's a stance that enriches our conversation here in NextBillion.

"The Design Revolution Roadshow"

Next I asked Emily if there was anything she wanted to say during her Pop!Tech talk for which she didn't have time. The obvious answer was "YES!" and then went on to tell me about the upcoming Design Revolution Roadshow.

Design Revolution is the name of Emily's new book, a compendium of 100 innovations in design for social impact divided into 8 sections: Water, well-being, energy, food, mobility, education, play and enterprise. The book is so new it's not even available at the Pop!Tech Bookstore, which has in display everything every speaker or fellow has ever published. However, Emily had a copy at lunch and I was able to take a quick sneek peek into it. It's totally relevant to the NextBillion community and I'm sure it will be appreciated by many of you out there.

"I wrote the book in 90 days (!) and see it as a continuation to my manifesto. The manifesto set the tone and marked the road. Design Revolution is a tool, a blueprint of how to actually do this work."

In sum...

I really enjoyed my conversation with Emily, someone who couldn't take working for what she thought was wrong, quit her job, worked as a blog editor for a while and then founded her own remarkable organization, one relevant to the NextBillion community because of its role in changing the way people and organizations think about design, enterprise and their link to development.

Make sure to keep track of Emily and the dates when the Design Revolution Roadshow will be in your area... she'll be releasing those soon! What's more, it will be Emily's home on the road! That's literal. See below for the Airstream, which will be rolling across campuses in the US bringing along a sample of the products highlighted in the Design Revolution book.

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

The morning sessions on day 2 at Pop!Tech is halfway through, with a major announcement just made by our host and curator Andrew Zolli: the Science and Public Leadership Fellows program which adds to the beyond-conference strategies Pop!Tech is implementing to fulfill its mission of accelerating the growth of world changing ideas and initiatives.

Andrew walked us through the rationale behind this initiative, aimed at helping scientists to overcome personal and institutional challenges they face in sharing their breakthroughs with the world. The structure of the program is different to that of the Social Innovations Fellows, consisting of a year-long support and a curriculum designed specifically around areas like communications and personal branding, which can expand the reach and impact of breakthrough discoveries.

Andrew's announcement was made right on time, after a packed room at the Camden Opera House gave a standing ovation to Hayat Sindi, a scientist and co-founder of Diagnostics for All, a living example of how science and research is critical to produce solutions that make critical goods and services available for populations living in their absence at the base of the pyramid. I had an interview scheduled with Dr. Sindi, one of this year's Social Innovation Fellows, after the morning session. However, not surprisingly, tens of people approached her after her presentation and Andrew's announcement. I'll do my best to sit down with her and share her words with you before traveling back on Sunday.

This is not the only announcement Andrew has made during the conference. Last night he also introduced the Pop!Tech Labs, through which members of the Pop!Tech community will collaborate on some of the critical issues discussed at the conference. The choice of "materials flow" for the first Labs year was timely after an afternoon full of innovations coming from MIT and shocking images shared by photographer Chris Jordan displaying the footprint of our plastic waste.

It sure looks like the Pop!Tech team has a busy year ahead. NextBillion applauds their commitment to making the impact of this convening more lasting and more focused on the needs of the underserved.

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

 "Clean coal" is a term that will probably ring a bell for those that were in the US around this time last year. Clean energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions were both key issues discussed during the presidential campaign and clean coal was advocated as a solution by both Barack Obama and John McCain.

"Coal cannot be clean. Getting it off the ground is a dirty process already", explained Jason Aramburu during our conversation last Wednesday night in Camden. "However, the principles of the clean coal process can be applied to biomass. When I discovered that I decided to found re:char. We can produce energy through a process that is not only carbon neutral but carbon negative, and also produce char that sequesters carbon, enriches degraded soils and improves agricultural yields for farmers around the world."

The core of re:char's technology, Jason explained, is a process called pyrolisis, which takes place by heating to biomass like wood or agricultural waste in the absence of oxygen. Pyrolisis separates biomass and turns it into two main bi-products: a liquid fuel called bio-oil and bio char. Bio-oil is the used to run an energy generator and the remaining biochar can be applied back to the ground, enriching the soils and accelerating the process of carbon capture. Other models involving biomass do one of the two, Jason told me, either turning biomass into charcoal which can then be used, to operate cooking stoves or into energy through gasification processes. Jason's model is different in that energy needs for lighting and cooking can be met through bio-oil, leaving char available to be put back into the ground, producing both environmental benefits (making the process carbon negative) and social benefits in the form of increased agricultural yields.  

Jason presentred at Pop!Tech yesterday evening, as part of this year's class of Social innovation Fellows. He argued that his technology can be used to both bring energy to the almost 2 billion people currently off the grid and also make a huge dent in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. "With enough energy produced through our technology, we have the potential of going back to 1992 carbon concentration levels in ten years. Our process reduces GHG emissions and also captures existing carbon from the atmosphere."

Re:char is already operating pilots in the US and in Cameroon, and has plans to roll out its technology both in the developing world and industrialized economies. When I asked him what had been most valuable from his experience at Pop!Tech, Jason said he'd been reminded of the importance to "look back at the base of our own pyramid; there's enormous opportunity for technologies like re:char's here in the States".  

I was struck by Jason's presentation, his keen knowledge of energy issues and his understanding of the inextricable links between poverty and the challenges poised by climate change. I suspect we'll be hearing much more about him in the coming months and look forward to reporting on his process.

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

The first session of Pop!Tech is through now and I can't say enough about the energy that filled the room. Before I move on I'd encourage you to join the conversation live on poptech.org/live, follow @nextbillion on Twitter and look out for the hashtag #poptech on Twitter.

Each Session at Pop!Tech is comprised of 3 - 4 speakers who deliver their presentations in ca. 20 minutes, joined in the end by one of the 2009 Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellows. I had a chance to meet and talk to some of them last night and they're a group of fun and inspiring folks to say the least... stay tuned for more on those conversations and the interviews I'm hoping to jot down with them.

Emily Pilloton, the founder of Project H Design went first among the fellows, describing the way her project is aiming to connect the potential of design thinking with the places and communities that lack access to it. I'll be looking for an opportunity to sit down with Emily later today and share with you some of what's next for Project H in the words of its founder itself.

Before Emily, Kurt Andersen and Dan Ariely took the stage, and before them curator Andrew Zolli who invited all participants to approach Pop!Tech with a motivation for creative possibility. Opening a conference titled is America Reimagined, Andersen and Ariely brought up fascinating points related to the question of what drives individuals to do what they do the way they do it. Andersen argued for rescuing the "amateur spirit", which drives us to do things without fear of breaking rules and without remuneration being the essential driving force. Ariely reinforced this point walking us through really fascinating research that showed how "work" and "social work" or things we intrinsically care about, have been in direct opposite ends and how this generation seems to be tearing those walls down.

Behavioral economics is not a topic we often report about in NextBillion. However, as I listened to these speakers I found myself thinking that the attitudes they described are the ones shared by the community interested in social enterprise and business at the base of the pyramid. If you're reading this blog, you're probably involved or looking for ways to get involved with a venture that erases the line between your working hours , your values and the issues you care most deeply about.

I'm off to Session 2. I'll probably wait until tonight to publish the next post with a detailed profile of one of the Social Innovation Fellows.

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

Early October marked my second year living in the United States. Is that too long already or is this just getting started? It depends what day of the week you ask me, to be quite frank. Sometimes it feels like it's been ages since I checked my bags at the airline counter in BOG, full of illusions and looking forward to joining the growing crowd interested in and acting upon the idea of social entrepreneurship.

There are other days when 48 months feel like an instant, when I feel like I know less and not more than I did when my passport was stamped at JFK. That feeling generally suggests that this is only the beginning of my stay in this neck of the woods and that there is still much for me to learn and absorb. Of course, there are still many days when I wake up itching to start packing again and go back to my country to harvest the seeds of curiosity that this experience and the fascinating people I've met have helped irrigate.

The last few days, and today in particular, have had a taste of this-is-just-the-beginning. I just arrived to Maine where I'll be live-blogging Pop!Tech 2009 for NextBillion.net, which doesn't come without a healthy dose of nostalgia. I can perfectly recall where I was, the time of the day and what I was working on when I logged on to read about Rob's and NextBillion's first live-blogging engagement at this unique conference two years ago, only days before initiating my email correspondence with him and WRI, where I now work. I enjoyed Rob's excellent writing, the interviews he posted and the parallels drawn while discussing the net impact of Pop!Tech. Last year's coverage was even more compelling, I think. Rob's interviews allowed us all to have a sneak peek at the world-changing ventures of the Pop!Tech Fellows. I can only feel grateful and humbled by this opportunity, and really look forward to providing what will hopefully be an equally useful and illustrative coverage for you.

The theme of this year's Pop!Tech is fascinating to say the least. Entitled America Reimagined, the conference will "take a top-to-bottom look at America's opportunities, its challenges, and its future. We'll explore the country's business model in the decades to come, and unearth inspiring stories of American invention and social innovation. We'll explore the country's role in the world, and the world's role in the U.S. We'll look at cutting-edge ideas in education, energy, entrepreneurship, and the many other social systems on which America's future wealth depends, and we'll ask what it means to be a superpower in the age of the Second Superpower -- the Internet." 

You might ask what the relationship is between this theme and that of the Base of the Pyramid or the practice of social enterprise. I believe that the ideas of social enterprise and/or BoP are in fact the result of a process of reimagination. A reimagination of markets and their role in addressing poverty and environmental degradation; a reimagination of the idea of personal fulfillment and what it means to be a "successful professional" in today's age. Furthermore, the founding idea of NextBillion (that the world's poorest consumers and producers, living mainly in developing countries, will be able to move up into the middle class thanks to the market dynamics instilled by gamechanging enterprises), will also push emerging economies into an increasingly decisive role in the world.

In other words, the "NextBillion idea" is one of many that challenge the until-recently lonely superpower to take a look in the mirror and reimagine its role in the coming decades. I'm looking forward to hearing and commenting on the interventions of many speakers, most notably Esther Duflo from MIT's Poverty Action Lab. I'm also thrilled to meet and interview hopefylly many of this year's Social Innovations Fellows.

I encourage you to share your feedback or ideas for this coverage, and to get in touch if you happen to also be attending Pop!Tech 2009.

Got to run to the new comers induction session... More later!

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

Fellowships are probably the best way to take a dive into the social enterprise space and learn about the challenges of the sector by working in the field. Perhaps more importantly, they allow participants to join a cohort and cultivate relationships that will likely play a significant role in shaping future projects.

We've posted news about several of those recently, including the Acumen Fund Fellows program, which is accepting applications until early November, the TED India Fellows and the Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellows, who will take the stage during the annual conference that begins tomorrow in Camden. (Stay tuned for more from Pop!Tech as of tomorrow morning, by the way!)

Three noteworthy opportunities are currently available, offered by LGT Venture Philanthropy, the Deshpande Foundation and the Rural Innovations Network. I encourage you to check them out and spread the word with those you think might be a good fit.

Continue reading this story...

Authored by: Francisco Noguera

Rob said it in one of his recent posts: this fall is shaping up to be a busy one, with plenty of conferences and engagement opportunities for those interested in the social enterprise/ base of the pyramid space. This is true especially for students in the US; October and November will see several venues that add to the discussions that took place as recently as last week over at Michigan's Ross School and MIT's Legatum Center.

The east coast will be particularly busy. Today, Columbia Business School will host its annual Social Enterprise Conference, with just a a bit over a month to go before Cornell dresses up to host the 2009 Net Impact North America Conference. Both will provide great opportunities to network with a large group of people interested in this space. Moreover, if you're in your first year at school, in the process of applying for entry in the coming years or just plain curious about what this whole buzz is about, there may not be a better way to start building a network than taking a couple of days to attend the Net Impact Conference. It was an amazing experience to be there last year, and I've had the pleasure of staying in touch and seeing many of the folks I met there last year. This year's lineup promises to offer interesting discussions on the perspectives for the sector and, most importantly, opportunities for students to engage in action after graduation.

That said, I feel the need to pose a couple of questions about the role conferences such as these should play. Although I absolutely recognize their role in stirring ideas and facilitating networking/ engaging among like-minded people, I feel that student-led conferences (and all social enterprise conferences for that matter) still fall short in bridging a critical gap: the one between the reality of conference organizers/ volunteers/ attendees (students, for the most part) and that of the individuals highlighted at panels and keynote sessions. Let's say you get a chance to listen to Willy Foote talk about Root Capital... I'll bet you can't help feeling the itch following a similar path and creating a venture of your own or finding a way to get to do this kind of work in the field in a sustainable manner. Alternatively, you may well run into a panel where someone like Nachiket Mor participates; again, again, you will be inevitably compelled and wonder how you could build a successful career within a large organization without losing focus of what matters most to you and your passion for this.

Continue reading this story...