WDI Davidson Review Summer 2011

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SUMMER

w i l l i a m

d a v i d s o n

i n s t i t u t e

11

New Tools, New Relationships WDI hosted 109 participants representing 20 countries for its inaugural Global Summit on Educating Entrepreneurs, held June 16-17 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The conference brought together those active in the international entrepreneurship field. That included educators who have designed and delivered successful programs, U.S. governmental and other multilateral donor agencies that have made entrepreneurship development a priority, international development agencies, international non-profits, and micro-lending institutions. Participants heard from a number of speakers, including former U.S. Ambassador Theodore Kattouf, Steven Koltai of the U.S. State Department’s Global Entrepreneurship Program, and Kathleen Wu from the U.S. Agency for International Development. They also attended two days of breakout sessions on topics such as new teaching methods, developing an entrepreneurship curriculum, challenges facing entrepreneurs in the Middle East, tools for helping SMEs grow their business, monitoring and evaluation, and entrepreneurship education for women in developing countries. Conference organizer Amy Gillett, director of WDI’s Executive Education program, was pleased with how the conference went and that participants walked away with some new knowledge and potential new partnerships. “We decided to organize this conference with the goal of sharing best practices in creating Co n t i n u e d o n pag e 3 0 >

Business Knowledge for Emerging Economies

getting on top of

global drug

supply chainS Prashant Yadav, one of the world’s foremost experts on pharmaceutical supply chains in emerging markets, has joined WDI as a senior research fellow and director of the Institute’s Health Care Research initiative.

Y

adav, who began his work at WDI in June, was previously professor of Supply Chain Management at the MIT-Zaragoza International Logistics Program in Zaragoza, Spain. He is an advisor and consultant to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK’s Department for International Development, and the government of Zambia. He is involved in field research and has been the principal or co-principal investigator for grant projects totaling $2 million. He currently has a project in Tanzania studying supplier incentives aimed at making artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drugs available and affordable for the treatment of malaria. The Clinton Health Access Initiative is sponsoring this project with funding from the Gates Foundation. “I’m really happy to welcome Prashant to WDI,” said WDI Executive Director Robert Kennedy. “He has a global reputation in the field of supply chain research and is one of the leading

authorities on the topic. Prashant joining WDI will allow us to make a big impact in the field, which is the goal of all our work here.” Yadav said WDI’s tagline — Business Knowledge for Emerging Economies — fits well with what he does. “All of my research, all of my field projects are about putting good supply practices and knowledge into improving public health in developing countries,” he said. “So the overall theme of using market mechanisms, or quasi-market mechanisms, to improve health care for underserved communities is, I think, a very good interface between what I do and what WDI’s bigger theme is.” He also said the idea of a think tank or policy institute housed within a business school and with strong ties to a wider university community — including a very robust medical research community — is unique. In addition to his title at WDI, Yadav has faculty appointments at U-M’s Ross School of Business and School of Public Health. “It does not exist, to the best of my knowledge, anywhere else in the nation,” Yadav said. “So I think that was a unique proposition for me.” Co n t i n u e d o n pag e 7 >


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