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Science & Innovation Policy: Entrepreneurship

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Ashoka

Ashoka supports social entrepreneurs — people committed to solving social problems with innovative ideas — to influence policymakers and bring about social change. Ashoka's network includes business entrepreneurs, policymakers, investors, academics, and journalists who work together to build infrastructure, such as access to financing and connections between business and academia,

The website publishes detailed information on Ashoka's activities including articles, blogs, video and audio. It also provides access to a directory of fellows (entrepreneurs) working in 60 countries and across sectors.

Business and Human Rights Resource Centre

The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre examines how human rights-based approaches can be brought to bear on the operations of international corporations and businesses, particularly with regard to environmental, social, and health-related impacts. As international companies can be the drivers of advances in science and technology, the centre aims to encourage companies to respect human rights by providing relevant information and facilitating constructive discussion.

The website provides resources including guidance on human rights grouped by country, issue and sector; information on principles and standards; and useful tools for monitoring performance. It publishes news and weekly alerts on human rights issues related to business.

Entrepreneurship

This website hosts information and research data on entrepreneurial activity as part of the World Bank's Development Research Program on finance and private sector research.

It links to research and reports on entrepreneurship as well as presentations and upcoming conferences. The website also publishes the World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Surveys that provide data on entrepreneurial activity — such as number of newly registered businesses — for over 100 developing and industrial countries from 2000–2007.

Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN)

This organisation was set up in 1997 to foster grassroots innovation and traditional knowledge across India. It helps innovators develop and commercialise their ideas, and provides a network to support their activities through technical and business advice.

Divided into geographical regions, the website provides news and publications, a product inventory, business opportunities as well as information on project funding, careers and volunteering.

Lighting Africa

Lighting Africa, an initiative of the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank, supports the private sector to develop and sustain markets for affordable, clean and efficient lighting and energy through off-grid technologies — including solar systems — in Sub-Saharan Africa. It provides information on business opportunities and projects, publishes news about its activities and links to relevant events.

Makeshift

Makeshift is a quarterly online magazine dedicated to documenting examples of innovation and creativity across the world. It covers topics such as technology, business and art from a range of authors, focused on grassroots projects in developing countries.

The website publishes feature articles, infographics and videos, as well as access to the full magazine through subscription.

Practical Action

Practical Action (formerly known as The Intermediate Technology Development Group) is a non-governmental organisation that specialises in promoting the development and use of technologies which address the needs of poor communities in developing countries. Practical Action works directly in four regions of the developing world – Latin America, East Africa, Southern Africa and South Asia and focuses on the development of appropriate technologies in food production, agroprocessing, energy, transport, small enterprise development, shelter, small-scale mining and disaster mitigation.

The Honey Bee Network

The Honey Bee Network brings together innovators, academics, policymakers, entrepreneurs and nongovernmental organisations to collect, document, and disseminate innovations and practices at the grassroots level. These range from traditional crops and agricultural techniques to machines that reduce labour inputs or costs.

The website provides access to an innovation database containing ideas, inventions and traditional knowledge practices; a newsletter published in seven Indian languages and English; and innovation competitions. Twice each year, members of the organisation participate in the Shodh Yatra journey in which they visit rural communities to identify and document examples of unrecognised local ingenuity.