Category: Base of the Pyramid

In this blog, we discuss cognitive computing and other technologies with a focus on supply chain management and innovation. Other topics of discussion include digital enterprise transformation, marketing, the Internet of Things, and smart cities. Our goal is to advance the public discussion about how cognitive computing and other advanced technologies affect the world in which we live.

Bradd C. Hayes is the active editor of this blog.

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Helping the Bottom Billion Revisited

Last October, Paul Collier, an economics professor at Oxford University, wrote an article for the Washington Post following the annual meeting of the World Bank presided over by its president, Robert Zoellick

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Microfinancing Turns Greedy in Mexico

I have written several posts focused on microfinance and small loans (see, for example, Financing the Poor and Small Loans Attract Big Players). Microloans have dramatically improved the lot of many of

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Venture Capitalist Philanthropy

Several months ago I wrote some posts about two types of individuals who have joined the ranks of the philanthropic [see The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur and Philanthropy at the Top

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Work versus Welfare

Debates about how best to bring people out of poverty are endless. Some people, like Steven Pearlstein, believe that wealth should be redistributed through taxation [see my post Looking for a Globalization

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A Manual for the SysAdmin Force

In a recent post [Attention Turns Again to Afghanistan], I noted that the U.S. military was paying a lot more attention to the mission of “nation building.” To underscore that point, the

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Profit-backed Social Philosophy

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, draws an interesting and diverse crowd. Yesterday I wrote about the young, social entrepreneurs found there by New York Times‘ columnist Nicholas Kristof [The Rise

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When Micro-lending Turns Ugly

In the past, I have praised micro-lending schemes that offer loans to the poorest of the poor so that they can start working their way up the economic ladder. Until Muhammad Yunus

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Fertilizing to End Famine

One of the continuing debates in the environmental world is about the use of fertilizer. Some environmentalists lament that fertilizers are actually killing the land they are supposed to enrich and that

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