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BoP Narrative Competition

2nd Annual Base of the Pyramid Narrative Competition - 2008



Co-sponsored by:
USAIDInternational Finance Corporation

The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management is accepting submissions for its 2008 Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Narrative Competition. This short-essay competition seeks to highlight the challenges of implementing business in underserved markets and identify innovative business initiatives or solutions to those challenges.

Competition
Guidelines
Eligibility
Awards
Deadline
Submission
Inquiries

Competition:

The 2008 BoP Narrative Competition has been created to help identify cutting-edge experiences of business innovation in underserved or marginalized communities.

Winning submissions must clearly articulate a business challenge that an organization working in low-income communities is striving to overcome, in addition to the resulting business model or initiative. Experiences and business models may be successful or unsuccessful, provided the challenge and solution-attempt is elaborated upon.

Organizations highlighted may be either non-profit or for-profit enterprises. Initiatives highlighted should illustrate a unique approach to poverty alleviation through an innovative product, service, technology, or business model.

This competition is looking for short essays illustrating BoP enterprises that meet the following three criteria:

  1. They are based on private-sector business models that are locally transformational. In other words, the business creates mutual value, such as capacity building and wealth creation, for both the community and the enterprise. Implicit in this is the expectation that the business will be partner-intensive in an effort to achieve the greatest success.
  2. A strong element of the Triple Bottom Line must be embedded in the business strategy - consideration of the environmental, societal, and economic impacts of the business. There must be motivation displayed to improve the quality of life for the community while simultaneously being sensitive to normative culture. Simply creating economic activity without regard for the local environment, community, or cultural impact is not in the vein of a BoP Enterprise.
  3. There must exist the potential and an aspiration for scale and replication. The inability to grow and expand a business fails to meet the objective of transforming the local society and economy.

Guidelines:

Eligibility: Open to all - professionals and students. No geographic restrictions. This competition may be of particular interest to students of business, development, journalism and the social sciences working in unique situations for the summer or exposed to unique experiences in economically challenged areas of the world.

Awards: Submissions will be divided into two categories, Developing Country Business and Developed Country Business. Winners will be announced on or about January 15, 2009. The winners will be asked to submit a short biography and photo to be used in publicity. The award will be presented to the author(s).

Developing Country Businesses – Sponsored by: the Office of Microenterprise Development in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, USAID; and the International Finance Corporation.

1st Place
2nd Place
3rd Place

Developed Country Business

Special Mention

Deadline: Midnight, October 5, 2008.

1Submission: The submission deadline has passed. We are no longer accepting submissions this year.

Inquiries: Please direct inquiries to bop@johnson.cornell.edu. The subject line should read "BoP Narrative Competition Inquiry."

1Note: All entries become the property of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University and may be reprinted or referenced in its online and print publications.