Social Enterprise Annual Conference

This panel will explore the strategies of two major for-profit enterprises to understand what approaches worked or didn’t work in the context of international development. Mr. Karim Khoja, CEO of Roshan Telecom Development Company in Afghanistan, and Mr. Jim Steele, CEO of Buchanan Renewables in Liberia, will walk the audience through their experiences, highlighting specific learnings and blindspots that are often overlooked in the context of development. This panel will follow an interactive format so as to encourage audience debate and engagement.

Promoting affordable housing remains an important pillar for the creation of development opportunities to low-income families in both emerging and developed economies. The recent global financial crisis constrained the availability of capital to invest in all kinds of housing and limited the supply of mortgage loans, especially to low-income households. This panel will attempt to reconcile the importance of funding affordable housing with the need to limit risk-taking in the financial markets.

McDonalds has shown that franchising can be a fast and profitable way to scale-up the delivery of products and services to its customers. The consolidated marketing, extensive training, and purchasing power scale of the franchise increase the chances of franchisee’s success. This panel will explore how the franchising model can be used to deliver products to low-income households in developing countries by learning from two successful franchises; one sells eyeglasses in Latin America, the other mobile phone minutes in Indonesia.

What are social enterprises’ key challenges in scaling up and developing a mature business model?

Is there a fundamental trade-off between good unit economics and serving the BoP?

What is the future of social enterprises in developing countries (being acquired/going public)?

It is widely accepted that education is a key driver for long-term economic growth and prosperity.  Despite an increase in education investment, many emerging markets are not seeing positive results and continue to struggle to improve the access and quality of their education systems.  This panel explores how governments, investors, private companies and NGOs can collaborate to expand the supply of education in the developing world.  In addition to increasing access, the panel will also discuss how global best practices in education can be successfully applied in emerging

Nearly one third of all humanity is without access to electricity.  This number is significantly higher in developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa (~70% without access) and South Asia (~50% without access).  The majority of those without access to electricity are located in rural villages, and without electricity these rural villages struggle to obtain the basic amenities of lighting, communication, refrigeration, and clean water.  Access to reliable and inexpensive power is essential for poverty alleviation in these areas, but a wide-scale expansion of the electrici

Social entrepreneurs prove everyday that no problem is too big to be tackled through innovation and business acumen.  But social entrepreneurship is not only the terrain of inspired individuals outside the corporate mainstream. Inside large multinational corporations (MNCs) around the world, “social intrapreneurs” are highlighting the incredible potential for the alignment of societal need and business value.

Mobile phones have played an enormous role in fomenting social change by lowering the transaction and operational costs of information flow.  In turn, this has enabled developing economies to have greater access to market transparency, improved delivery of social services and banking services.  This panel will explore all three of these themes and the role that governments, non-profits, corporations and citizens can play in advancing and promoting the adoption of mobile technology.

Businesses at the base of the pyramid often struggle to sustainably disseminate technologies and stimulate markets.  How do entrepreneurs succeed and fail in disseminating technologies and adapting products to the poor? What innovative market and distribution mechanisms are overcoming traditional challenges in reaching the poor?  What new platforms enable business at the base of the pyramid and how can they be leveraged for development?

In the context of sustainable sourcing, fairtrade initiatives have developed a business case for integrating smallholders into international supply chains. A major example is the coffee industry. Are those buying practices suitable for other product groups?