In the spirit of ‘Design for the other 90%‘, a 28-year old Shawn Frayne has been developing small scale wind power for LED lamps and radios in the homes of the poor. Right now wind turbines are expensive and big, and they don’t scale down well as there is too much friction in the gearbox [...]

WaterHealth is leading ‘A Blue Revolution’, with a mission to provide safe water to the poorest communities. It also invests in health and hygiene education programs to help combat waterborne diseases in the communities it serves.
For me, the most interesting thing is that they intend to make a profit doing this. Their focus is [...]

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 [...]

Speaking to Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunnus, last year, about his work and ideas for the future, he disclosed that the trick to success is to closely observe what everyone else is doing, and then do something totally contradictory. He set up the Grameen Bank because he was convinced that it was, in [...]