It’s easy to overlook the knowledge capital that exists at the grassroots. I’ve been reading a paper on this subject by Professor Anil Gupta, who teaches at the Indian Institute of Management (incidentally, the world’s most selective MBA school!) in Ahmedabad. In it, he challenges the implicit assumption in most development efforts, that the poor [...]

Media-savvy Richard Branson seems to have caught on to the green agenda, and he sounds quite serious: ‘going green makes smart business sense‘. His latest company, Virgin Fuels, is investing heavily in carbon efficient alternatives to oil, such as biofuels. If the oil price stays high, investing in biofuels should produce good returns - [...]

The last time I wrote about the successful telecom venture, GrameenPhone, I shared my enthusiasm for big business partnering with non-profits to open up markets in developing countries. Because of it, small entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, ‘village phone ladies’, are renting out the use of handset airtime to some 12 million users. A shining example of [...]

Another first for the Middle East. Bahrain’s busy skyline now includes the world’s first building with integrated wind turbines! It is a twin sky-scraper complex that generates power from the on-shore Gulf breeze ‘funnelling’ through it (the wind has to come at it from the right direction, as the turbines don’t turn). There are three [...]