World Bank Group's Lighting Africa 2008: First Global Conference and Development Marketplace Competition for Off-Grid Lighting in Africa May 5-8, 2008

2008 CHAMSA Conference in South Africa

BoP Protocol 2.0 is now available!

Competition identifies Innovative Business Solutions for BoP Markets

Stu Hart discusses the opportunities and challenges of working in the BoP. See newly released video clips.

Tilburg University, TiasNimbas Business School,Triple Value Strategy Consulting and ICCO will organize a BOP seminar on November 30. Building on recent BOP experiences with MNCs, Stuart Hart will share state of the art research findings and new insights on this important strategic concept. We believe this event is a unique opportunity for senior executives and professionals in the area of business strategy and poverty alleviation to interact directly with BOP authority Stuart Hart. In addition to his lecture, Stuart Hart will have a dialogue with a selection of executives from Dutch MNCs (a.o. Jan Zuidam, vice-chairman DSM, Manon Schuurmans, BOP business development manager DSM), NGO’s (a.o. Jack van Ham, director ICCO) and the participants of the seminar. During the informal part of this seminar, you will have the opportunity to meet representatives of the emerging Dutch BOP community. Information on the program and registration will follow in October.

Early 2007, Tilburg University has invited Stuart Hart, international thought leader on Base of the Pyramid strategies, to be a visiting professor for two months per year. Stuart Hart is a strategist on innovation from the base of the pyramid and one of the world’s top authorities on the implications of sustainability for business strategy. He is strategy professor at the SC Johnson Business School at Cornell University and consults companies ranging from DuPont and GE to Procter&Gamble and Wal-Mart. With CK Prahalad, Hart wrote the path breaking 2002 article “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, which provided the first articulation of how business could profitably serve the needs of the four billion in the developing world. Recently, the second version of his book “Capitalism at the Crossroads” was released.

Tilburg University, TiasNimbas Business School and Triple Value Strategy Consulting have decided to join forces to set up a Benelux BOP Learning Lab. The learning lab will be a part of the global BOP Learning Lab Network created by Stuart Hart, who will be actively involved in this initiative. The core objective of the BOP Learning Lab is to be a vibrant platform for strategic dialogue, academic research and executive education on strategic BOP challenges. Building on their respective networks in this area the Learning Lab partners are looking forward to co-operate with a selective group of key partners, notably international companies, NGOs, governmental bodies and research institutes with complementary capabilities. The official launch of the Learning Lab will be celebrated with a BOP conference. More details about the exact date and program will follow.

The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Learning Lab of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School of Management, Cornell University is accepting submissions for its 2007 BoP e-Journal Competition. The competition seeks to highlight the challenges of doing business in underserved markets and identify innovative business experiments or solutions to those challenges.

Please join us in September as we bring together leading executives, policy makers, and academics to share their experiences with enterprise-based approaches to creating mutual value with the four billion people at the BoP. Visit the official website here