GIN2007
Conference: Session Summary: Base-of-the-Pyramid Workshop.
See
full conference program at: http://www.wlu.ca/ginconference
June 15-17, 2007
Sustainable Social and Ecosystem Stewardship
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Conference
Chair, Dr. Sanjay
Sharma
GIN Home page http://www.greeningofindustry.org
Session Summary:
WORKSHOP ON BASE-OF-THE-PYRAMID -- STRATEGY TOWARDS
SUSTAINABILITY
This BoP-session is a part
of an extensive project on Base-of-the-Pyramid. The project has its roots in
two coinciding events: The BoP workshop in GIN2006 in
Cardiff
and the BoP special issue of Greener Management International (GMI) edited by Prabhu Kandachar.
The GMI special issue is to be released in June 2007 coinciding with GIN 2007.
It will be followed by an edited book on BoP with
latest insights. This BoP session at GIN2007 serves
as a platform for preparation of a new book with Greenleaf Publishing
http://www.greeningofindustry.org/BoP_Book_Call.pdf.
The session format will be a dialogue workshop with
brief presentations on multiple perspectives around BoP-initiatives.
The main question is whether the BoP Strategy leads
to social-, ecological and economic sustainability. The themes and questions to
be touched upon include the following:
* Base of
the Pyramid (BoP) as customers and BoP approach as a strategy to alleviate poverty by means of
entrepreneurship, including the poor as entrepreneurs and the role of social
entrepreneurs.
* The role
of Technology and Innovation (Technological-, Social, and Business-) to meet
the needs of BoP customers.
*
Sustainability: Balancing economic growth and ecological pressures on the
planet.
The workshop will be facilitated Dr. Minna Halme,
Helsinki School of Economics. The participants include:
- Professor Prabhu Kandachar, University of Delft, The
Netherlands: “The aims and framework of the coming BoP
book”.
- Simona Rocchi, Director of Sustainable Design, Philips Design, The
Netherlands: “Empowering creativity to
deliver sustainable value: A design-driven innovation experience grounded
in value co-creation and user insights”
- Myrtille
Danse, Agricultural Economics Institute (LEI), The Netherlands: “Innovative
chain configurations to facilitate the connectivity to the BoP market: Empirical findings on the benefits and
constraints of social embedded product design to design water purification
technologies for the local communities in the Madagascar and Pakistan
market”
- AHM Sultanur Reza, Head of Community Information
Center Project, GrameenPhone Ltd,
Bangladesh “GP Community
Information Center: Helping the poor through technology”
- Burcu Tuncer, UNEP Collaborating Centre for
Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) of Wuppertal Institute: “The Human Development through the Market (HDtM)
Approach - Creating Local Socio- economic and Environmental Value via SMEs”
- Philip Vergragt and John Stutz, Tellus
Institute, Boston, USA: “Well-being and BoP”
- Bruce Paton, College of Business at San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California:
“Evaluating the social impact of BoP businesses”
Correspondence minna.halme@hse.fi