Defeating Global Poverty

Sounds like an interesting gathering to review the state of microfinance in Chicago on May 25th. Both keynotes are very knowledgeable on the state of microfinance. Vikram Akula is CEO of SKS Microfinance, one of the world's largest and fastest growing MFIs. I saw Vikram a couple of weeks ago at an event in Seattle where he shared about how SKS is leveraging global capital markets to maintain an incredible client growth rate. Elizabeth Littlefield is CEO of CGAP and has considerable insight into microfinance industry and where things are heading. I was on a panel with her at the USAID microenterprise event last summer.

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Labels: events, poverty

Those of you who are interested in applying your business skills to help the working poor might be interested in an upcoming conference called Business with Four Billion: Creating Mutual Value at the Base of the Pyramid on September 9-11, 2007 in Ann Arbor, MI.

This conference is aimed at the growing interest in enterprise-based strategies for serving the four billion poor at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP). One of the keynotes is C.K. Prahalad, author of the well-researched BoP book, The Fortune At The Bottom of The Pyramid. Here's Prahalad's summary of the opportunity.

One of the conference objectives is to develop the new organizational capabilities required to achieve both business growth and poverty alleviation. This should be a very interesting discussion as so often these are viewed as incompatible objectives.

Labels: events, poverty