"Presenting rigorous and original research, this volume offers key insights into the historical, cultural, social, economic and political forces at play in the creation of world-class ICT innovations in Kenya. Following the arrival of fiber-optic cables in 2009, Digital Kenya examines why the initial entrepreneurial spirit and digital revolution has begun to falter despite support from motivated entrepreneurs, international investors, policy experts and others. Written by engaged scholars and professionals in the field, the book offers 15 eye-opening chapters and 14 one-on-one conversations with entrepreneurs and investors to ask why establishing ICT start-ups on a continental and global scale remains a challenge on the "Silicon Savannah". The authors present evidence-based recommendations to help Kenya to continue producing globally impactful ICT innovations that improve the lives of those still waiting on the side-lines, and to inspire other nations to do the same."

"Many organizations around the world implement programs designed to encourage entrepreneurship, including grant prize awards, accelerator programs, incubators, etc. The goal of these programs is to supply entrepreneurs with early-stage support and visibility to help develop ideas and attract capital; but, if capital markets are efficient, good business ideas should find funding anyways. In this paper, I present evidence from the first global- scale, quasi-experimental study of whether entrepreneurship programs improve outcomes for start-up firms. I employ a regression discontinuity design to test whether winners of start- up program competitions perform better ex-post than losers, where the threshold rank for winning the competition provides exogenous variation in program participation. With 460 competitions across 113 countries and over 20,000 competing firms, I find that winning a competitions increases the probability of firm survival by 64%, the total amount of follow-on financing by $260,000 USD, and total employment by 47%, as well as other web-based metrics of firm success. Impacts are driven by medium-size prize competitions, and are precisely estimated both in countries where the costs of starting a business are low and where these costs are high. These results suggest that capital market frictions indeed prohibit start-up growth in many parts of the world."

"We consider the role that gender-stereotyped behaviors play in investors' evaluations of men- and women-owned ventures. Contrary to research suggesting that investors exhibit bias against women, we find that being a woman entrepreneur does not diminish interest by investors. Rather, our findings reveal that investors are biased against the display of feminine-stereotyped behaviors by entrepreneurs, men and women alike. Our study finds that investor decisions are driven in part by observations of gender-stereotyped behaviors and the implicit associations with the entrepreneur's business competency, rather than the entrepreneur's sex."

"Through our analyzes of over 30 models of smallholder service delivery, in 16 different counties, we have been able to identify best practices and key drivers for farmer resilience and business sustainability. Here, in this report we share with you our findings. Read on to better understand the key leverage points for creating systemic improvements in delivery systems. The data we’ve gathered, and patterns observed should enable farmers, service providers and investors to make smarter decisions for sustainable growth. Couple this with innovative blended finance, to de-risk investments, and we will be able to unlock billions of dollars in smallholder agriculture to take these models to scale."

"This paper examines the sparse but rapidly growing literature on Business (and Seed) Accelerators. It summarises the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that have been identified by academic authors, and matches each factor to operational and strategic activity within an Accelerator and to theoretical arguments for and against their importance. The aim is to match CSFs with literature from a wider range of disciplines, particularly psychology, sociology, economics, leadership and learning. These each help explain, justify, inform and give a theoretical context to the documented CSFs. The background models, once identified, are useful tools in the planning and analysis of Accelerators."

"The recent emergence of business accelerators around the world has positioned them as a key player in many regional innovation ecosystems. However, significant confusion exists among academics, industry practitioners and policy-makers about what these organizations are. The confusion stems from their association with incubators and from a lack of differentiation among accelerators. As a result of such lack of clear conceptualization academic and other stakeholders risk drawing false conclusions regarding how these organizations fit into different aspects of the regional innovation ecosystem. In this study we use archival and interview data from the Australian context to differentiate accelerators. While we find accelerators that fit the emerging definition of the concept, we also find several that stretch the definition and meaning of 'accelerator'."

"While private sector engagement has long been a part of the global development lexicon, it is taking on new meaning today. Multinational and large national corporations actively shaped the SDGs and are contributing to global development in new and exciting ways. Meanwhile, social enterprises are becoming a critical part of the development ecosystem with their innovative approaches to global development challenges and new market-based solutions.

This special Devex report sheds a light on the relationship between social entrepreneurs and donors, and offers recommendations on what can be done to further strengthen those relationships."

"Working on myriad cases of inclusive business projects over the past five years, we have gathered deep insights to be able to create and test a robust tool that works in the context of Bangladesh. The goal of the publication is to inspire social ventures adequately serve the bottom of the pyramid by leveraging this robust framework, which allows for a detailed list of factors ensuring viability, sustainability and scalability.

Focus has invariably shifted towards building sustainable models where we work not in isolation, but hand in hand with entrepreneurs, investors and organizations to explore new markets, discover more customers, and, in the process, transform lives of the underserved 2.7 billion. The solution lies in bringing them as an integral part of the market economy, create employment and convert them into consumers; not keep them in fringes of the informal economy."

"This report describes the landscape of business incubators and accelerators in the UK, exploring the scale and distribution, both geographically and sectorally."

"The study (i) reviews the definitions and concepts of social enterprises, (ii) outlines the landscape across 10 selected countries in Asia and Latin America, (iii) discusses challenges to scaling as faced by social enterprises, and (iv) presents suggestions for development banks to extend support to social enterprises through public and private sector investments. The study categorizes social enterprises and argues that the comparative advantage of development banks is to support selected social enterprises that are commercially bankable and have the base of the pyramid (BOP) at the core of their business operations. Development banks can support these enterprises-considered as the inclusive businesses of the future-through investing in impact funds and/or public sector loans."