Articles by Mariko Tada

• Investee VisionSpring will be honored with the CASE Award for Social Enterprise Innovation from Duke University.
• IDE India, the organization behind our drip irrigation investment GEWP, will be featured in an upcoming BBC World News series. More details on where/when to watch, but in the meantime, you can catch a preview here.
• If you’re in the New York area, Jacqueline Novogratz will be speaking at the New School on February 17. The event is open to the public; RSVPs are required.

• CEO Jacqueline Novogratz was interviewed recently for the NPR program Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Check out the show’s website for a podcast and lots of supplementary material.
• In a special section on business and food security, the Financial Times featured two Acumen Fund investments: drip irrigation company GEWP here and nutrition company Insta here. Similarly, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) includes an interview with Acumen Fund’s Ajay Nair in its latest newsletter.
• Talent Manager Blair Miller was recently interviewed on Dubai radio about the Fellows program.
• An Outlook Business article profiles GEWP, PVRI and other for-profit businesses serving our target market in India.
• There’s still time to order your Book Club in a Box! Get yours now and share The Blue Sweater with others.

Our good friends at Nuru Project, who put on the DIGNITY event with Acumen Fund’s New York chapter, are putting on a photo auction and benefit for Haiti and Partners In Health on February 4th. If you are in the New York area, we encourage you to come out for a good cause.

The application process for summer associates in Acumen Fund’s New York office is now open. We are currently accepting applications for the following positions for Summer 2010:

• Portfolio Associates - New York (3)
• Communications Associate - New York (1)

Applications will be accepted until 5:00PM EST on February 3, 2010. If your school subscribes to The MBA-Nonprofit Connection’s summer jobs program, please apply through that channel (a list of participating schools can be found at: http://mnconnection.org/schools/partner-schools.html). If your school is not a member of MNC, please send a cover letter and resume to summerintern2010(at)acumenfund.org. Please include the job title “Summer Associate - Portfolio” or “Summer Associate - Communications” in the subject line.

Award-winning investees: Acumen Fund entrepreneurs continue to be recognized for their work. The founders of D.Light Design were among Social Venture Network’s 2009 Innovation Award winners. And the entrepreneurs behind Books of Hope were recently named as Purpose Prize Fellows. Congratulations!

Investee interview: Listen to Sam Goldman of D. Light in his recent podcast for the Social Innovation Conversations series.

MBAs and social enterprise: This article in the Financial Times discusses how business school coursework is responding to the rise of social enterprise. Acumen Fund investee LifeSpring is mentioned and our own Yasmina Zaidman is quoted.

Patient capital around the world: The concept of patient capital is gaining traction globally, as in this coverage in Gulf News of CEO Jacqueline Novogratz’s recent visit to Dubai and this LiveMint article from India.

• MAGNUM in Motion: Our friend and advisor, the MAGNUM photographer Susan Meiselas, just completed a powerful photo essay with Human Rights Watch on maternal mortality in India.  “In Silence” makes the case for Acumen Fund’s investment in LifeSpring hospitals and 1298 ambulance service.

• Interview with LifeSpring’s CEO: You can hear Anant Kumar, the visionary head of LifeSpring, in a podcast in the Social Innovations Conversations series.

• Congrats to D.light: D.light Design was awarded the Social Venture Network 2009 Innovation Award, which recognizes and supports the leaders of emerging enterprises.

• Kashf on Oprah: Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s new book, Half the Sky, includes the story of a Kashf Foundation client, which they recently shared on the Oprah Winfrey show.

• Design thinking in BusinessWeek: A BusinessWeek blog post talks about Acumen Fund’s work with Ripple Effect, featuring a video clip of our own Yasmina Zaidman.

If you haven’t voted in the People’s Design Award competition sponsored by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the clock is ticking!

Acumen Fund investee D.Light Design is a nominee.

You can cast your vote HERE. Hurry - you have until 6 pm EST today to get your vote in!

UPDATE: As of 9:45 AM EST, D.Light Kiran was in FOURTH place (out of 196). Do submit your vote and push D.Light to the top!

Ashoka’s Changemakers has just announced a new competition for innovative solutions in the area of nutrition. In conjunction with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), (which is also an Acumen Fund partner), the competition seeks ideas that broaden access to improved nutrition for affected populations.

Approximately one billion people are malnourished, and 25,000 people die every day from hunger and related causes, so there is real need for proven ideas that expand and improve nutrition in affected communities.

You have until November 25 to submit solutions.  Entries will be judged on innovation, impact and sustainability, with winners announced in February.

Acumen Fund just issued a press release announcing new investments in Pakistan: Jassar Farms and AMC.

We’ve talked previously about Jassar Farms in the context of our new Agriculture Portfolio. Jassar Farms is focused on producing high quality, affordable inputs to help poor farmers improve breeding of livestock and increase milk productivity.

Our latest investment in housing is Ansar Management Company (AMC), a housing development company that builds off our past work with Saiban in Pakistan to create much-needed housing for low-income consumers.  As much as houses and infrastructure, AMC is focused on building community — the company is making sure residents are invested in living there, creating ownership in the truest sense of the word.

AMC represents the evolution of a rising leader as well. The entrepreneur behind the investment is Jawad Aslam, a former Acumen Fund Fellow, who has taken his learning and commitment (he is building a home in the community for his own family) to start AMC. By investing capital (and giving him access to additional Fellows to support his work), Acumen Fund is betting on his ability to succeed.

TED@State: TED just posted video of Jacqueline Novogratz’s remarks about patient capital at the State Department.

TIME on insurance for the poor: We’re using our social enterprise laboratory to bet on micro-insurance with investments like FMiA, so we were interested to see in Barbara Kiviat’s article on insurance and the poor in TIME.

IDEI on PBS: IDE India has been featured in The NewsHour hosted by Jim Lehrer with discussion on the Green Revolution, its current environmental consequences, and how IDEI is engaged in bringing about a revolution in its own way among smallholder farmers by using market-based approaches to increase their incomes.

Focus on AyurVAID: This article is a great profile of AyurVAID hospitals and its efforts to bring treatment to low-income customers. 

On finance and poverty alleviation: The latest issue of The Economist highlights Acumen Fund (and includes a few images of our investments) in an article on financial innovation and the poor.

Time for responsibility: As part of a special section on community service and responsibility, Time magazine just put out a list of “Responsibility Pioneers.” Acumen Fund is among them, along with investee D.Light Design, and peer organizations like KickStart, Ashoka and Living Goods. (Full list here.)

Ripple Effect makes a splash: IDEO and Acumen Fund have been partnering around innovation in the water sector, as this story on Forbes.com highlights.

Ecotact in the news: This video on CNN.com showcases the work of Acumen Fund investee Ecotact, which provides sanitation services in Kenya, as well as David Kuria, the entrepreneur behind the organization.

Outlook on GEWP: Outlook India recently featured this article on the success of drip irrigation and GEWP.

The pulse of Pulse: VentureBeat looks at the development and progress of Pulse as a platform for metrics in the social investing space.

The Acumen Fund Communications team is currently looking for a volunteer to write, edit and manage content on two of our key online properties – the Acumen Fund blog and website. This is a 3-month, full-time volunteer position. The volunteer will be expected to work out of Acumen Fund’s New York office.

The Communications Volunteer will be a key member of Acumen Fund’s communications team, working with Acumen Fund staff (across functions and geographies) to ensure timely, accurate, compelling content on the website and blog, and to support internal knowledge building. This is an unpaid position, but you’ll learn a lot about the sector as well as the inner workings of Acumen Fund and have the opportunity to share your words with the ever-expanding Acumen Fund community.

The ideal candidate will have a facility for the written word (and for the technology needed to share such words), as well as a passion for Acumen Fund’s vision and mission.

Click here for the full position description. Apply by sending a cover letter and resume to mtada@acumenfund.org. Please include the job title “Communications Volunteer” in the subject line. Deadline for applications is 5:00pm EST September 30.