Guess what I found, even in the most remote fish village in Tai O!
Frontier Market Scouts
Vaarwel Nederlands – Sourcing Lessons
As my three months in the Netherlands is completed, I have reflected on my experience in connecting with over 150 social entrepreneurs and 50 pipeline partners. Mapping the social entrepreneur space in a foreign country from scratch creates a great sense of fulfillment and I would like to share some of the key highlights I […]
Empathy
Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as family—that’s impossible. It lies, instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love. – Paul Bloom, The Case Against Empathy
Three Month Check In
Now that I’ve reached the halfway point of my FMS placement, I thought it would be a good chance to list out some of the highlights of what I have been up to at Unitus Seed Fund since starting here: USF announced two new investments into iStar and Jack on Block USF won Villgro’s “Best Indian […]
Some Photos from the GrowthAfrica Site Visit – April 2013
Working hard with one of the team members for the photo op.
Why I FEEL that renewable energy for rural communities is so important…
So back in 2008, I did some volunteer work in Guatemala in a rural community of principally Mayan families. Well, as many of you know, the Mayans make incredibly beautiful handcrafts–much like so many indigenous peoples all over the world.
Notes from Sankalp: Identifying the Value of Social Enterprise Incubators
Last month, I had a chance to attend India’s largest and leading impact investing and social enterprise conference, the Sankalp Unconvention Summit, in Mumbai. The conference, which attracted 1,000 attendees, plays host to several social impact awards, serves as a venue for entrepreneurs to meet investors, is a massive networking opportunity, and offers a quasi-think […]
The Story of Goecha La – Insights on Sikkim & The Business of Himalayan Trekking
I have recently returned from the incredible experience of trekking Goecha La, a 5000m (16,500ft) pass in the North Eastern Himalaya in the Indian State of Sikkim. The state of Sikkim is a world of its own when compared with … Continue reading →
Special announcement: Frontier Market Scouts expanding to US Placements, in partnership with Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing!
Have you ever talked with someone looking to get into impact investing as a career–and didn’t have any answers on where to go? Over the past three years, the Frontier Market Scouts program, which was launched in 2011 in partnership with Village Capital and Sanghata Global, has been an invaluable launchpad for professionals aspiring to enter the impact investment world–we’ve trained and placed over 75 professionals with investors and start-up ventures in emerging markets over the last three years.
From a professional standpoint at Village Capital, the Frontier Market Scouts have been critical to Village Capital’s sourcing engine: they have recruited over 5,000 unique enterprises to apply to programs in the past 24 months, largely led by Scouts on the ground. Scouts come from top graduate programs and professional firms such as Goldman Sachs, Cambridge & Associates, TDBank, and Deloitte; placements globally have included firms as wide-ranging as Invested Development (Kenya); Unitus Seed Fund (India); Artemisia (Brazil); Transist (China); and New Ventures (Mexico).
FMS and Village Capital are excited to announce that this summer, we will be launching the first US-based Scout placements, in partnership with the Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing, based at the University of Utah. Scouts will undergo a two-week practitioner-led training in Salt Lake City at the Sorenson Center for Global Impact Investing (formerly known as the University Impact Fund); at the end of the training, they will be placed with impact investors and startup enterprises across the U.S. The program–including curriculum and placements–will be operated in partnership with MIIS.
How you can get involved:
1. Do you know a talented person looking to break into impact investing as a profession? Please forward this e-mail to them: we’ve found the Scouts program to be an excellent career on-ramp. Applications are due May 7th, and the training begins in Salt Lake on May 28th; application can be found at: http://www.miis.edu/academics/short/frontier-market-scouts/apply/application
2. Are you based in the U.S., and do you need short-term project help? Please fill out the short partner form (http://www.miis.edu/academics/short/frontier-market-scouts/partners/partnerform) if you’d like to have a Scout work with you. Scout placements last three-to-six months, starting in mid-June and ending in mid-December. Scouts have been able to add value in deal sourcing, diligence, operational assistance, and sales/business development. You’ll have the opportunity to interview potential placements directly, and we will ask placement partners to contribute a small stipend.
Helping to Pave the Way for Kenya’s Organic Farming Future
As progress continues in the upgraded Eco Fuels Kenya factory and daily operation starts to move towards an autonomous flow, the management team now looks forward to further implementing its strategic plan for the future. Specifically what this means is … Continue reading →
The New and the Old
Recently, I have visited two very different places: one celebrating the old and another embracing the new in applications of harnessing renewable energy. Wind Power: an age old tradition Windmills have been in The Netherlands for hundreds of years and are a hallmark of Dutch ingenuity in harnessing natural energy to drain out excess water […]