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 [...]

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 [...]