Back in 1995, the late Indian-American economist C.K. Prahalad came up with a poverty-fighting strategy that was so unusual that no international development publisher would touch it. Imagine the world’s four billion poorest people as potential consumers, he urged, and described how companies and agencies could engage them profitably.

He wanted companies to learn the realities of the Bottom of the Pyramid consumer by going into their world – and the carrot was the huge opportunity for corporate growth that went along with effectively tackling poverty by co-creating solutions with consumers. 

And while the publishers weren’t keen to share his ideas, those ideas spread widely on the internet, and a great many companies began sending out staff to live in BOP communities and learn about BOP consumers.

That was how SC Johnson ended up in Rwanda two decades ago, in fact.