07
Review (so far) BoP
S U M M E R
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WILLIAM
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Conference will assess what’s been learned, discuss current issues and obstacles
T H E W I L L I A M D A V I D S O N I N S T I T U T E , along with the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University, will co-host the conference, “Business with Four Billion: Creating Mutual Value at the Base of the Pyramid,” to be held September 9-11 on the campus of the University of Michigan.
An African shepherd uses a portable wireless computer to determine the best place to run his herd. Farmers in India gather around a community computer to track global price trends for their crops.
The conference will bring together 350 of the leading thinkers in the “base of the pyramid” — or BoP — field, including business managers, policy makers, social entrepreneurs, academics, non-profit experts, and development agency professionals. They will discuss what they have learned about operating at the base of the pyramid and explore current issues and challenges. Conference sponsors include the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, and Procter & Gamble. To learn more about the conference or to register, visit the conference website at www.bop2007.org. “We are delighted to be organizing this conference with our partners,” said Ted London, conference chair and director of WDI’s base of the pyramid research initiative. “Combining the expertise and reach of our two institutions has allowed us to assemble a terrific set of speakers. The initial response has been outstanding, and we believe this conference will be the next watershed event for organizations interested in developing enterprise-based strategies for serving the BoP.”
Football being played in an African town.
Operating at the base of the pyramid is a rapidly growing field. In 2002, C.K. Prahalad and Stuart Hart — both of whom will speak at the conference — wrote a pathbreaking article on how business strategies could serve the needs of the four billion poor in the developing world. Two years later, Prahalad’s book, “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits,” was named the best business book of 2004 by Amazon.com and Fast Company. That same year, the World Resources Institute held a large conference in San Francisco exploring this new and exciting innovation. Though the BoP field continues to generate increasing global interest from organizations in the corporate, nonprofit and development sectors, much has changed, Hart said.
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