Chapter V. Scaling Innovations

Civil society organizations and startups account for a disproportionate number of experiments to improve the lot of the BOP consumers. However, their reach is limited. Their orientation is local and they do not have the resources or the managerial skills for scaling up, much less taking it global.

One of the pressing problems at the BOP is access to clean, good-quality energy. The poor spend a disproportionate amount of their income on expensive and inefficient sources of energy—batteries, oil, and candles. Grid-based electricity does not reach most of them. E+Co is a pioneer in developing alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind, and experimenting with them in remote parts of the world, be it in Latin America, ...

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