Back in the heady 1990s, a lot of energy was put into some exciting attempts to make the world a fairer, more sustainable place by tackling poverty with ideas that were proven to work. 

Much of that energy came out of Bangladesh, where BRAC and Grameen had begun to design practical, bottom up answers to health, education, economic and gender challenges.  Some came from the late C.K. Pralahad’s work to make society aware of the potential of “Bottom of the Pyramid” consumers to help shape a different model of capitalism.

And some of it came from attempts to share ideas and information about what we now call ‘North-South’ development work more widely in the US through a program that came to be known as Lessons without Borders.