An "I" For Development

Welcome to our new blog series where we will be sharing novel approaches to development that show great promise. We will seek to highlight efforts that we see as cutting-edge—bringing new partnerships, people and methodologies to address development challenges in multiple sectors.

Solving the World's Most Pressing Problems One Idea at a Time: The Hult Global Case Challenge

Deirdre White | February 24th, 2012

As a development professional for nearly 25 years, I know how hard it is to design and advance new approaches to the challenges we see on a daily basis. All too often, the “solutions” are coming from the offices of people who are sitting too far from the problem to understand it in depth and/or who are averse to the risk of tackling an old problem in a new way. That is why I am so excited to be serving as a judge in the Boston Regional Finals of the Hult Global Case Challenge (Hult GCC) which is sponsored by the Hult International Business School. With regional finals taking place this week and global finals in April, the Hult GCC deserves a good look as a valuable and innovative tool for development.

IBM’s Partnership for Employment-Focused Education

Deirdre White | January 24th, 2012

“We don’t have a jobs problem in this country; we have a skills problem.” This was how Stan Litow, quoting Thomas Friedman, began his presentation to the participants at CRO’s CommitForum! last September.

As President of the IBM International Foundation and a former Deputy Chancellor of the New York City schools, Stan has been following the startling education statistics in this country – an overall high school drop-out rate of 25%, with only 30% of high school graduates ever completing a bachelor’s degree. The global economy is increasingly knowledge-based, with an associated increase in the need for workers with post-secondary educations. Because of this, IBM and more than half of US employers report that they cannot find qualified workers.