Bill Gates calls for "creative capitalism" that harnesses the urge for self interest and the urge to care for others together to resolve the challenges of the 21st century and create a better world for all to live in.

At Davos this year, Gates's speech mentioned, FP contributor C.K. Prahalad, who has long advocated that businesses sell to the "bottom of the pyramid"—the poorest of the poor.

In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the software tycoon plans to call for a "creative capitalism" that uses market forces to address poor-country needs that he feels are being ignored.

The business environment is changing dramatically. Climate change and poverty have become market shapers that will not disappear with economic hard times. Adaption and innovation is the successful business response to such changes, so how far can corporate sustainability become a feature of innovation within business?

In a bizarre manifestation of über-capitalist harmonic convergence, on the same morning that the press was hyping Bill Gates' criticism of capitalism, the New York Times reported that Wal-Mart's CEO, Lee Scott, gave a speech on Wednesday declaring that the world's biggest retail chain was determined to drastically change the world for the better, by simultaneously solving the world's energy, healthcare and environmental crises.

When Atul Goel, the 31-year old CEO of E-City Ventures, visited Miyapur on the outskirts of Hyderabad sometime back, what struck him was the surging crowd in front of a run-down cinema hall. A few months after his visit — in November 2007 — Goel launched Talkie Town, the company’s value brand for the masses. Quite predictably, the first such theatre with two screens and a capacity of 1165 each was launched in Miyapur.

WHEN a plan to create a $100 laptop was announced three years ago at the World Economic Forum, it seemed like a stroke of genius. Here was an opportunity for the global business elite gathered in Davos to show they had a heart, and to do so in a genuinely useful way—by developing a cheap way to bridge the digital divide and extend the benefits of the IT revolution to millions of children in the developing world. Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT professor who came up with the idea, was celebrated (once again) as a visionary. Today, everything looks a lot messier.

Tata Motors will unveil its Rs 1-lakh (Rs 100,000) car at the 9th New Delhi Auto Expo on January 10. The commercial launch of the car is slated for the second-half of 2008. Not since the launch of the Maruti 800 in 1983 has a new car model been more keenly awaited. And just as the Maruti 800 before it, if the Tata Rs 1-lakh car is commercially successful, it will alter the passenger car market in India beyond description.

India’s Tata Motors recently announced that it plans to begin turning out a four-door, four-seat, rear-engine car for $2,500 next year and hopes to sell one million of them annually, primarily to those living at the “bottom of the pyramid” in India and the developing world.

BANGALORE, India — Manohar Lakshmipathi does not own a computer. In fact, in India workmen like Mr. Manohar, a house painter, are usually forbidden to touch clients’ computers.
So you can imagine Mr. Manohar’s wonder as he sat in a swiveling chair in front of a computer, dictating his date of birth, phone number and work history to a secretary. Afterward, a man took his photo. Then, with a click of a mouse, Mr. Manohar’s page popped onto the World Wide Web, the newest profile on an Indian Web site called Babajob.com.