Power Pal

I read a good article in the opinion section of the WSJ a couple days ago about corruption in the World Bank's dealing with Kenya. It's an interesting follow-up to my previous post about profit-motivated capitalism being better than philanthropy . The WSJ article highlights several recent examples of how money was being misused by both Kenyan officials and the World Bank themselves. It was that corruption that prompted Paul Wolfowitz in 2006 to withhold $260 million in lending to Kenya in an attempt to link future lending with guarentees of changes in Kenya. Wolfowitz was forced out and lending increased dramatically as he left. And of course, corruption did not abate in Kenya. The problem with disbursing funds without appropriate guarentees of change or oversight to ensure those changes are carried out is that it feeds a culture of corruption. And, as I've mentioned before, it's that corruption and lack of rule of law that is holding people back from helping th...

I love reading the editorial page of the WSJ. I came across an article a couple weeks back by William Easterly, an economics professor at NYU, about how Bill Gates' recent push at Davos for what Gates called "creative capitalism" was, although admirable, not really going to help anyone. (It's a 36 min video, so it takes some time to watch). The main point that Gates makes in his speech is that traditional capitalism only benefits those that have money - i.e. those that can participate in the system at all. He was trying to push corporations to to look for innovative ways to incorporate the poorest people of the world into the global economy. He suggested that "recognition" might be one reason a company might want to do that. If companies are recognized for their philantropic works more, that's good PR and free marketing and would motivate them to do more. He used "tiered pricing" as another example for how they might go about it. For ...

Continuing on my " cork " theme of postings, I read an article about a liquor store in Washington D.C. that is near and dear to my heart - Cork 'N Bottle . Apparently the new owners are trying to change the face of liquor stores on Georgia Avenue in D.C. by not allowing people to buy single bottles of beer. They're even doing wine tastings. Not sure how successful they'll be, but it sounds like a great idea to me. That area could use an overhaul. Long live Cork 'N Bottle.

I read this great article in the WSJ about how blogs and social networking sites are being used by 20-somethings to push and fund their favorite causes. The article mentions how people are using these sites to push out donation requests to all their friends in their network. I recently learned about how these Facebook applications work and I can definitely appreciate the potential here. All of these are donation related though. I'd be more interested in applications where you're getting people to do stuff in the real world. Still very cool though. The laundry list of different charitable donation sites was pretty interesting. I can't believe there are so many of them. I wonder if they'll all remain independent or if they'll consolidate at any point.

Saw an episode of the Discovery Channel show Future Car and my jaw was dropping the whole time. In dealing with the sustainability issue of energy for transportation, you have to look at both sides of the problem - the source of the energy and the use of the energy. Two particularly impressive design concepts that we'll likely see in the coming years to use energy and resources better were the following: Loremo - a car that gets 157 miles per gallon of diesel. It could drive from Denver to L.A. (1000 miles) on around 7 gallons of diesel. That would take about 42 gallons of unleaded gasoline in my car. Unbelievable. The core idea here is that there is no point in driving a 150 lb human around in a 1.5 ton vehicle that is specifically designed in a way to be resistant to the wind. There is no need for the vehicle to be that big. So, make the vehicle as light as possible (while maintaining sturdiness) and make it as aerodynamic as possible. Great idea. Could be a bit scary driving i...

Read a few recent articles about private equity for non-profit organizations. Both of them dealt with how social enterprises or non-profits can not reach their full potential quickly enough because of lack of access to financing. One article in Forbes was about a social enterprise fund that was started recently called Good Capital . It's a venture capital fund targeted at social enterprises (both for profit and non-profit) that have sustainable business models. Apparently it's difficult for these enterprises to get debt financing as they don't have many assets to back up the investment. That's the gap this fund is intended to fill. The fund is supposed to provide a moderate return, but has very high fees. The article also mentions similar funds like Google's Google.org . The other article in the Wall Street Journal was about how hedge funds are getting involved in supporting fund-raising for non-profits. As hedge fund managers join the boards of non-profit...

Read an article in Forbes about a venture called WiLDNet that is providing low-cost, long-distance wireless internet access to the Third World. The initiative is being run by the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions ( TIER ) group at UC Berkeley headed by Eric Brewer (founder of Inktomi). It can transmit up to 60 miles using just 8 watts of electricity (a solar panel can run it) at cable modem speeds and costs only $400. One hospital is using it to deliver telemedicine in India. Very cool use of technology.