A moral dilemma gripped Professor Gupta when he was invited by the Bangladeshi government to help restructure their agricultural sector in 1985. He noticed how the marginalized farmers were being paid poorly for their otherwise unmatched knowledge. The gross injustice of this constant imbalance led Professor Gupta to found what would turn into a resounding social and ethical movement—the Honey Bee Network—bringing together and elevating thousands of grassroots innovators. For over two decades, Professor Gupta has travelled through rural lands unearthing innovations by the ranks—from the famed Mitti Cool refrigerator to the footbridge of Meghalaya. He insists that to fight the largest and most persistent problems of the world we must eschew expensive research labs and instead, look towards ordinary folk. Innovation—that oft-flung around word—is stripped to its core in this book. Poignant and personal, Grassroots Innovation is an important treatise from a social crusader of our time.

Millionaire maker Dan S. Kennedy and local-level marketing specialist Jeff Slutsky empower small business owners to take on big box companies and distant discounters using their best asset—their ability to bond directly with their consumers. Small business entrepreneurs are armed to go “grassroots” given winning strategies to take their marketing to the street level resulting in higher customer retention, greater referrals, and a thriving business for the long-term. About the Book Kennedy and Slutsky dare small business owners to break free of the ingrained tendencies to “advertise when you need more customers” and to copycat what they see big, national companies doing. Local business owners are urged to add some politicking to their business presence, focusing their marketing on directly connecting with their customers, integrating them into their community and even, their daily activities. Kennedy and Slutsky deliver creative, high impact alternatives and supplements to disappointing traditional advertising and new media including strategies for gaining free advertising from local news media, creating events that multiply customers, and effectively using direct mail. Small business owners also uncover surefire tactics that capitalize on their neighborhoods, the four walls of their business, and the internet, reaching their local customers and creating a sense of a personal relationship. Throughout their lesson in going grassroots, Kennedy and Slutsky also reveal the nine inconvenient truths of grassroots marketing, keeping small business owners on track and on their way local business stardom. Features • Presents a marketing approach specifically engineered for small (local) businesses • Reveals 9 No B.S. inconvenient truths and how to implement them • Illustrates concepts with examples from practicing business owners • From Dan Kennedy, author of the popular No B.S. books including No B.S. series, which shipped more than 250,000 copies • Identifies what’s wrong with traditional and new media advertising • Offers methodology to break free from ingrained tendencies and copycat marketing

Private enterprises in advanced economies have been learning to use information and communication technology (ICT) to innovate and transform their processes, products, services and business models, significantly improving productivity and competitiveness. Moreover, the ICT industry itself has become a major source of job creation and a contributor to economic growth and business transformation. A key question today is whether and how developing countries can learn to benefit from the ICT revolution, and what roles the government and private sector can play. Already, a number of developing countries have been inspired by the example of India and China, and are now seeking to jump on the outsourcing bandwagon. Nevertheless, with few exceptions in the developing world, little attention has been paid by policymakers and practitioners to invest systematically and proactively in ICT-enabled growth, poverty reduction and grassroots innovation. Most communities and small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries, for example, face multiple constraints to adopting and leveraging this general purpose technology, and lack the capabilities for maximizing its potential. In "Enabling Enterprise Transformation", Nagy Hanna draws on his rich experience of over 35 years at the World Bank and other aid agencies as a development strategist and ICT policy expert, the most current research, and best practices from around the world to provide practical tools for promoting economic and social transformation through ICT. He assesses various initiatives to develop and diffuse ICT, such as innovation funds, incubators, parks, public-private partnerships, and comprehensive promotion programs. He argues for the strategic options now open for developing countries to participate in ICT production, to deploy ICT to transform industries and services, and to leverage ICT as a new national infrastructure for improving the business environment and enhancing the competitiveness of the whole economy. The challenge for leaders in developing countries is to create such social and institutional dynamics for learning about ICT use and adaptation at many levels. Lessons gained so far from programs to build these social learning and innovation capabilities at the institutional and grassroots levels should be shared among developing countries, and a dialogue among business leaders, policymakers, development agencies, educational institutions, and the general citizenry must be advanced.

Outlines the leadership qualities of the group of Californian business, government, education and community leaders who formed a collaborative regional alliance called Joint Venture: Silicon Valley.

This book analyzes the impact of entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation on meeting chronic and recurring social challenges, such as poverty, gender inequality, sustainability and climate change, income disparity, social healthcare, community housing and homelessness, and the drive to cleaner food and water supplies. It discusses inclusive entrepreneurial strategies to meet the above social challenges through transformational leadership in the developing economies. With case studies from Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the chapters highlight the success and failure of entrepreneurship in resolving the social challenges, arguing that effective convergence of strategies related to technology, innovation, and poverty alleviation influences entrepreneurial performance. Connecting different theoretical underpinnings and providing a number of frameworks, conceptual models, and cases, this work advances the conversation among entrepreneurship scholars on impacting the developing world.

The amazing e-commerce success story that provides a powerful new growth model for small business start-ups and grassroots entrepreneurs One of the world’s fastest growing Internet companies, Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma have inspired a generation of young Chinese—not just as a road map to riches, but as a lesson in entrepreneurial individualism. This illuminating guide takes readers inside this global giant of e-commerce and shows entrepreneurs how to build their own businesses from a grassroots vision to a world-class operation. Using Alibaba’s incredible success as a case study, the book identifies the driving forces behind job growth, innovation, and sustainability in the Digital Age. It shows small business owners how to unleash their entrepreneurial spirit, realize their grassroots ambitions, and use technology-driven platforms to grow their companies across multiple markets. The Alibaba Way offers a proven way to survive and thrive. The first book-length case study of the Alibaba phenomenon Alibaba is receiving incredible positive coverage in the media—its IPO is likely to be the largest in the US and one of the largest in the world Dr. Lowry is an expert in Chinese economics with experience in American markets Dr. Ying Lowrey is an Economics Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, and Deputy Director of Tsinghua Research Center for Chinese Entrepreneurs.

In this book, Nobel Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps draws on a lifetime of thinking to make a sweeping new argument about what makes nations prosper--and why the sources of that prosperity are under threat today. Why did prosperity explode in some nations between the 1820s and 1960s, creating not just unprecedented material wealth but "flourishing"--meaningful work, self-expression, and personal growth for more people than ever before? Phelps makes the case that the wellspring of this flourishing was modern values such as the desire to create, explore, and meet challenges. These values fueled the grassroots dynamism that was necessary for widespread, indigenous innovation. Most innovation wasn't driven by a few isolated visionaries like Henry Ford and Steve Jobs; rather, it was driven by millions of people empowered to think of, develop, and market innumerable new products and processes, and improvements to existing ones. Mass flourishing--a combination of material well-being and the "good life" in a broader sense--was created by this mass innovation. Yet indigenous innovation and flourishing weakened decades ago. In America, evidence indicates that innovation and job satisfaction have decreased since the late 1960s, while postwar Europe has never recaptured its former dynamism. The reason, Phelps argues, is that the modern values underlying the modern economy are under threat by a resurgence of traditional, corporatist values that put the community and state over the individual. The ultimate fate of modern values is now the most pressing question for the West: will Western nations recommit themselves to modernity, grassroots dynamism, indigenous innovation, and widespread personal fulfillment, or will we go on with a narrowed innovation that limits flourishing to a few? A book of immense practical and intellectual importance, Mass Flourishing is essential reading for anyone who cares about the sources of prosperity and the future of the West.