Dougg Jimenez's blog

Last week, Aleem Walji participated in GE’s global conference, ‘Disrupt or Be Disrupted’. He has written an entry that is being featured in The World Bank's "Let's Talk Development" blog. Below is an excerpt:

How do you ‘disrupt’ your business from the core by building on your strengths and leveraging your assets? Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO talked about the fear of losing too many engineers and scientists who don’t ‘fit corporate culture’ but proceed to found billion dollar businesses (Sergei Brin started at GE). It reminded me of a session at the Indian School of Business led by a senior Google Executive where he said that it’s not Microsoft, Facebook, or Twitter that keeps him up at night, it’s ‘three kids in a garage’. Hewlett Packard, Apple, Google, and Groupon, all started small, learned fast from failure, took risks nobody was willing to take, and then fundamentally disrupted business models and industries.

For the full blog entry, click here.

Follow Aleem Walji on Twitter!

The Tech Awards, presented by Applied Materials, is a competition for social enterprises creatively using technology to benefit humanity.

Laureates have chance to win up to $75K, spend a week in the Silicon Valley for capacity development training, and attend a spectacular awards gala.

There are six different categories for the awards that include: Environment, Education, Health, Economic Development, and the new Young Innovator (under 26) and Sustainable Energy Awards.

Nominations for this program will close on April 6th, 2012. You can make a nomination for yourself or someone you know here.

seToolbelt is pleased to announce the launch of its second competition for original tools and resources for social enterprise! They are looking for innovative, practical, real-life responses to the challenges that arise in social enterprises so that they can help make these original tools available to the wider community of social entrepreneurs.

3 winners have been identified in the Resource Competition put on by seToolbelt and IdeaEncore.

The three winners below will share the $1,000 prize money:

To highlight the work of social entrepreneurs, this animated video tells the story of a relationship between an Indian householder and a young social entrepreneur. In the story, the householder, Neeraj, is given the opportunity to pull himself out of poverty through the intervention of Amit, a social entrepreneur. The video tells of one man's journey from destitution, picking rags from a garbage heap, to owning a business of his own.

The Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation recognizes individuals whose technological innovations improve the lives of impoverished people in the developing world. The Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation celebrates outstanding technology-focused innovators who have improved quality of life in the areas of health, shelter, energy, agriculture, quality of air, water, soil, education, or ecosystem management in developing nations and have disseminated technology that is scalable or replicable.

2 Weeks left to nominate and win US$20,000!

For the 7th consecutive year the World Challenge is searching for grassroots community projects that promote sustainable development through innovation and original thinking. Their mission is simple: to reward small businesses which have found solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems.

If you have what it takes, they would like to hear from you. Please check their website and fill in an application form. You have until the 19th of June, at midnight. Their judging panel will select the best 12 entries to be filmed by BBC World News and featured in a special ad series in Newsweek magazine.

Recording of the event now available online!

A conversation with:

Bill Drayton, Founder, Ashoka
& Valeria Budinich, Chief Entrepreneur,
Full Economic Citizenship Initiative, Ashoka

Wednesday, May 18, 11:30-1:00

World Bank, the Black Auditorium, 600 19th Street, NW, Washington DC

Live webcast will be available here

Please join us at 10:30 AM for coffee & cookies and to meet visiting Ashoka Fellows

Join Bill and Valeria on a discussion about their breakthrough economic framework for creating new value, business profits and social benefits at every level of the economic pyramid.

Apps for Development
Awards Ceremony & Expo
April 14, 2011: 1:00pm – 3:00pm
(Live Webcast 2:00pm – 3:00pm)
MC Atrium, World Bank Headquarters

Please join World Bank President Robert Zoellick as he announces the winners of the Apps for Development Competition.