BOP Source Launches the First Social Network for the Base of the Pyramid, in Honor of Blog Action Day

Harvard Graduate Bridges Multinational Companies with the World's Poorest People, Through Social Media

For immediate release: Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Kathmandu, Nepal -- Jenara Nerenberg of Bop Source has released the BOP Source Social Network today in honor of Blog Action Day. The BOP Source Social Network allows the 4 billion people living on less than $3 per day, also known as the base of the pyramid (BOP), to directly communicate with companies who want to do business with them, including companies such as Unilever, Nokia, and others. Jenara Nerenberg, the Founder, is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.

The goal of the BOP Source Social Network is to directly connect consumers at the base of the pyramid with the companies that want to do business with them. The Network benefits both parties; as the site description reads, "At BOP Source, marketing representatives can interact with and get to know BOP consumers and BOP consumers can voice their needs for a particular product, service, information, or other valuable resource."

The BOP are found across the globe, with dense pockets in Central and South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. The proposal that the BOP could be a tappable market of substantial revenue was first introduced by Professor Stuart Hart of Cornell University and C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan. Both advocated that as companies exhaust market potential at the higher income tiers of the economic pyramid, companies miss out on substantial financial and social gains that are represented by the BOP. Embedded in their argument was a strong focus on the need for BOP enterprises to create social and economic value for individuals living at the base of the pyramid and that such ventures should be sustainable, both environmentally and in the value they create for BOP consumers. Several BOP ventures have sprouted up since Hart and Prahalad's groundbreaking article, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," and often focus on themes such as healthcare, electricity, and water sanitation.

The BOP Source Social Network is open to everyone and has already attracted Nerenberg's fellow graduates from Harvard's elite institutions such as the Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. In addition to bringing new media tools to the BOP and connecting the BOP to companies and NGOs through mobile technology and social networks, Nerenberg is also a Marketing Columnist and a New Media Marketing Consultant.

Among college and graduate students today, there is a rapidly growing interest in the private sector as champions of social, economic, and environmental change. Jenara Nerenberg examined such topics in depth during her graduate studies, with courses across Harvard and MIT and with accomplished Professors such as Kash Rangan, Michael Chu, Jay Winsten, and Alan Trager.

While the BOP may seem out of reach due to their largely rural, poor lifestyles, the BOP Movement as found on sites such as NextBillion.net and Kiva.org show that they are anything but out of reach. Companies, NGOs, students, and governments are actively working with the BOP to create sustainable methods of poverty alleviation and the BOP Source Social Network is one such step toward bridging the global economic and information divide.