"Sustainable Entrepreneurship
From The Bottom Up"

July 16th - 17th, 2015
Burlington, Vermont

The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) is a socio-economic designation for the more than 4 billion people living on less than $8 a day. It is also a business strategy that focuses on products, services and enterprises to serve this demographic in a way that is culturally sensitive, environmentally sustainable and economically profitable.

There are tremendous benefits to companies who begin focusing on the poor as business partners and innovators, as well as, value-demanding consumers. Companies who choose to serve these new markets will join a unique group of bold visionaries that not only embrace a new brand of corporate social responsibility, but will also experience a new mode of growth and profitability.

As we witness growing inequality and accelerating environmental degradation around the world, commercial attention in the years ahead will inevitably come to focus more on breakthrough and disruptive innovations that directly confront these challenges. The time is now for entrepreneurs and innovative corporations to take the “Green Leap”— the harnessing of technological and business model innovations to create new growth platforms that regenerate the environment and lift the poor—while simultaneously generating financial returns.

Increasingly, competitive advantage will hinge on innovations incubated at the base of the pyramid (BoP)—the ability to create tomorrow’s sustainable enterprises from the bottom up, by commercializing new, disruptive technologies through innovative business models focused on the underserved at the base of the world income pyramid. Ultimately, some of these innovations will also have the potential to “trickle up” to (and transform) the top of the pyramid through reverse innovation.