05 November 2009

IDE ~ Al Doerksen & Zenia Tata @ D-Ventures!

Great to have both Al Doerksen and Zenia Tata visit our MIT Development Ventures class to share their experiences operating and growing International Development Enterprises (IDE). The core IDE mission is...
Creating Income Opportunities for the Rural Poor
...something they've pursued since 1981. Using enterprise-oriented approaches to increase incomes, they concentrate on improving market access, increasing agricultural production, and creating sustainable local businesses. Their projects are country specific and aim at increasing income for those living on less than a dollar a day and have collectively helped more than 19 million farmer-entrepreneurs lift themselves permanently out of poverty. I've written in the past about IDE founder Paul Polak, including his Pop!Cast talk and his visit to MIT at the launch of his book, Out of Poverty where he asked "Is Charity Ethical?" Be sure to check out latest updates via the IDE news blog. Also interesting to hear was the Board-level decision to concentrate resources on being the premier global supplier of affordable core farmer technologies, with special emphasis on irrigation and all things water...

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