For twitter users: The event that was mentioned in this thread - Base of the Pyramid (BoP) World Convention & Expo. A Brave New Marketplace: Unleashing Opportunities at the Base of the Pyramid, in Singapore - is now taking place and you can follow it on twitter by following this hashtag:

#BoPConvEx

Or this handle: @BoPHub
twitter.com/BoPHub

It's pretty interesting. We have e.g. the following people sending their tweets from there right now: John Sauer (Water for People), Ingeborg Krukkert and Catarina Fonseca (both IRC), Jack Sim (of course! World Toilet Organisation), Clean Team from Ghana.

Regards,
Elisabeth

P.S. My apologies to people who don't like using Twitter. I know exactly how you feel. I used to think what's this jargon with hashtag and handle, what is it all about!?! Meanwhile, I have been "converted" and also use Twitter for following what's going on in the sanitation sector. It can be quite a useful tool once you are used to it.

Dear Forum Users,

There will be a matchmaking event for entrepreneurs, small businesses and other stakeholders in Singapore:

Base of the Pyramid (BoP) World Convention & Expo. A Brave New Marketplace: Unleashing Opportunities at the Base of the Pyramid

Venue: ITE Headquarters & ITE College Central, Singapore

This event is a joint initiative from Dutch (Aqua for All, IRC, Simavi, WASTE) and international (BMGF, Euromoney, WB/WSP and the World Toilet Organisation WTO) organisations. The Sanitation Business Matchmaking Estafetta aims to bring full scale sanitation services for the BoP market. The session links investors to sanitation business opportunities and at the same time, strengthen the mechanisms that make these partnerships work.
The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) market presents a large but challenging opportunity to scale and transform lives. For the past decade, there has been substantial growth in BoP ventures, provision of quality services to the poor, as well as investor interest in the market. However, there is also a growing recognition of limitations that can affect venture sustainability, scalability and success.
Themed A Brave New Marketplace: Unleashing Opportunities at the Base of the Pyramid, the inaugural BoP World Convention is a unique forum that encourages key stakeholders from multiple sectors and industries to share knowledge, engage with issues and explore partnerships to bring sustainable and affordable solutions that could impact millions of lives. The convention provides an action-oriented platform that features high-level discussions between the public and private sectors.

For more info, please read the brochure attached or follow the link below:
www.bopworldconvention.org/





[posted by Sebastian Klos]

Dear SuSana Members and Partners,

Greetings from the World Toilet Organization!
We would like to invite you to participate in the upcoming events happening in unison in Singapore this August:

1. World Toilet Summit (WTS) - 26-27 August 2014
2. BOP World Convention & Expo 2014 - 28-30 August 2014, co-organized by BoP HUB, Ashoka and MP International.

The World Toilet Summit is a unique global event established by the World Toilet Organization to bring together various sanitation stakeholders under one roof to connect and collaborate on innovative inventions, projects and products in the sanitation sector.

The BoP World Convention & Expo, is a unique forum that encourages key stakeholders from multiple sectors and industries to share knowledge, engage with issues and explore partnerships to bring sustainable and affordable solutions that could impact millions of lives.
The BoP is broadly defined as those earning less than USD 10 a day and roughly 4 billion people live in this tranche of the population. This event seeks to catalyse unconventional market-based solutions to problems at the base of the pyramid (BoP), by promoting:
(i) social entrepreneurship,
(ii) inclusive business solutions (such as well-designed CSR initiatives) and (iii) responsible investing/philanthropy in the BoP.

Additionally, we are partnering with IRC, WSP, Aqua for All and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to bring up to 50 of the world's best water/sanitation entrepreneurs looking for partners/investors to scale-up at the business matchmaking event.

This event will feature Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for Finance of Singapore, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, as Guest-of-Honour and panelist.

The list of speakers include luminaries like Sir Fazle Abed of BRAC, Dr. Paul Polak of iDE and Windhorse, Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga, Dr. Al Hammond of Ashoka, and Silicon Valley success story Mr. Andrew Ng of Coursera. Attendees come from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, from social enterprises/businesses like Plastic Bank, Gawad Kalinga, Kopernik, YCAB Foundation, Milaap, Sattva, NuMoni, development organisations or networks like World Bank, UNDP, Aqua for All, IRC, WSP, Mercy Corps, Doctors without Borders, World Vision, investors like Accion Venture Labs and Indian Angel Network, academe, MNCs and corporations such as UBS, DBS, Bayer, Gain, DSM, Unilever, Novartis, Cemex, Hogan Lovells, Salesforce, to up-and-coming entrepreneurs/innovators/inventors from the region and beyond. More information is available at our event website at: www.bopworldconvention.org/

Registration is now open, and please proceed to register for the early-bird by 15 June via: www.bopworldconvention.org/delegate.html

Thank you and we sincerely hope you can join us in a groundbreaking week this August!

Laura