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"New Models of Development"
2009-2010 SEVEN Fund Essay Competition

http://sevenfund.org/new-models-development/index.php

Cambridge, MA – April 26, 2009 – The S.E.VEN Fund (SEVEN) is announcing its 2009 - 2010 Student Essay Competition. This year we are seeking essays on inspiring new models of economic development from around the globe. The competition will award one (1) student prize of $10,000. The submission deadline is December 7, 2009 at midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST). Winners will be announced on February 7, 2010.

Essay Question

Business journalist Jeff Chu's article "Rwanda Rising: A New Model of Development" (Fast Company Magazine, April 2009) tells the story of how the African nation of Rwanda is pioneering a new model of economic development that has broken existing paradigms and subverts traditional dynamics where rich donors parentalize the poor, and where development solutions are top-down, driven by sentimentality, and ultimately ineffective.

Chu describes Rwanda's model of development as placing the locus of responsibility for peace and prosperity on its own shoulders, using business as a force for positive change, turning mere sympathizers into friends, and benign donors into effective partners and investors. With strong leadership, a clear vision, and a mandate to control its own national economic destiny, Rwanda's approach requires having not just a heart, but also more importantly, a mind for the poor. The more deeply one explores Rwanda's model, the clearer it becomes that because all partners derive unique benefits this form of development is sustainable.

The SEVEN Fund is looking for other models like this, at the national, regional, or city levels, where communities and leaders have decided to stimulate human and economic development through a "heretical mix" of business strategy, local wisdom, and mutual benefit. Essay writers are asked to review the article, "Rwanda Rising: A New Model of Development", and in a similar fashion, tell the story of enterprise solutions to poverty in other places, to highlight where these models are taking root and flourishing around the world.

The winner will be announced on February 7, 2010. The winning essay may be published on SEVEN's website, or in selected magazines and publications. SEVEN intends to publish a selection of all submitted essays on its website and in other publications. By entering the essay competition, students are understood to give their permission for their essay to be used in that fashion.

About S.E.VEN

Foreign economic aid and government programs have spent billions of dollars during the past five decades to alleviate the high number of people living in poverty. No country has been lifted out of poverty as a result of these efforts, but the mindset remains the same: aid programs are the key to poverty alleviation.

Entrepreneurship, as a solution to eradicate poverty (i.e. a focus on wealth creation rather than poverty reduction via re-distribution), remains controversial because it goes against the prevailing mindset that solutions to public problems are created by the government, rather than from the private sector. The notion of creating wealth is often stigmatized as "exploiting the poor;" and businesspeople in developing nations are sometimes regarded as too self-interested to be a force for positive social change.

There are efforts by international organizations and personalities that aim to correct this, but these efforts often turn into "top-down" and "social engineering" solutions, or into calls for philanthropic donations and handouts, rather than focusing on economic integration, improved productivity, and growth. The prevalent mindset in trying to "solve" the problem of poverty focuses too little on the opportunity these new, vast markets represent as a way to create new producers and consumers; to connect, as Pope John Paul II has said, all people to networks of productivity and exchange.

At the core of the approach to poverty alleviation is the basic question: Are individual persons, no matter where they live, able to determine their own future? Does positive change come from the ingenuity of the individual or does a group of us (well-educated Westerners, primarily) have to tell the rest what to do? The answer to these questions goes to the core of our view of how we see the person, as fatalistic or self-determined, and it determines whether our proposed solution to an issue like poverty involves a "top-down" approach or a "bottom-up" solution. Indeed, to what extent do we rest the locus of responsibility for a person's future on him or her, or on others, out of their beneficence?

SEVEN is a virtual non-profit entity run by entrepreneurs whose strategy is to markedly increase the rate of innovation and diffusion of Enterprise-based Solutions to Poverty. It does this by targeted investment that fosters thought leadership through books, films and websites; supporting rolemodels - whether they are entrepreneurs or innovative firms - in developing nations;
and shaping a new discourse in government, the press and the academy around private-sector innovation, prosperity and progressive human values.

The aim of SEVEN Fund programs is to challenge the prevailing mindset in the fight against poverty. We want to stimulate discussion around the questions of whether wealth-creation may be the most effective solution to alleviate poverty. We invest our efforts and resources to discuss, find, research, and document examples where entrepreneurial success is shown to have led to poverty alleviation. In the process, we support entrepreneurs in developing countries with case studies, mentorship programs and publicity and services that help them succeed at what they do.