Win up to $4k for a BoP short essay

4^th Annual BoP Short-Essay Competition

The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management is pleased to announce its 2010-2011 Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Short Essay Competition co-sponsored by USAID and IFC. This competition seeks to highlight the challenges of implementing business in underserved markets and identify innovative business initiatives or solutions to those challenges.

Winning submissions must clearly articulate a business challenge that an organization working in a low-income community is striving to overcome. The description must describe in detail the business model and include a financial analysis of the business. Business models may be successful or unsuccessful, provided the challenge and solution-attempt is elaborated upon.

Submissions must be less than 1000 words, in English, and submitted no later than midnight, January 19, 2011. Prizes range from $1000-$4000.

For more details visit: www.johnson.cornell.edu/sge.

Impact investing jobs!

Check out the GIIN's new Career Center.

NYT article on Indian microfinance sector

Here's the NYT article Prof Bugg-Levine discussed in class.

Impact Investments: An Emerging Asset Class, published by J.P Morgan Global Research

Check it out: Impact investments: An emerging asset class is a research note published by J.P. Morgan Global Research and is the result of collaboration between Social Finance at J.P. Morgan and The Rockefeller Foundation, in partnership with the Global Impact Investment Network.

BIID happy hour

We're good to go at Amsterdam Restaurant Wednesday evening after class, starting around 6pm. Address: 1207 Amsterdam Ave. Head to the downstairs bar. CBS will cover a drink (or two, depending on how many of us show up) for everyone, including tips, but beyond that you're on your own.

Indian Village Bans Cellphones for Unmarried Women

We learned that "women" and "cellphones" are the keywords for successful business models in developing countries. However, this village sees cellphones as tools that arrange forbidden marriages.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572404575634140904060312.html

Emergence of "social business"