Place Based Economic Development with Simon White

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Simon White

Simon White

Simon White is a specialist in place-based economic development, private sector and business development and business environment reform.

Two centres for social innovation

Creating physical and virtual centres for the promotion of social innovation appears to be an emerging trend. Here are two examples. In Toronto, Canada, the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) is a Toronto-based social enterprise with a mission to catalyze social innovation. CSI’s shared workspace model offers office amenities

The enabling city: places of social innovation

“Social innovation thrives on the ideas and efforts of social entrepreneurs and creative individuals whose socially conscious work contributes to environmentalism in a variety of ways”, writes Chiara Camponeschi in her 2010 e-book, The Enabling City; Place-Based Creative Problem-Solving and the Power of the Everyday. Here, the sources of innovation

Recipes for growth, democracy (entrepreneurship and innovation) in an increasingly integrated world economy

BOOKS REVIEWED Dani Rodrik (2007) One economics, many recipes; globalization, institutions and economic growth, Princeton University Press, Princeton Dani Rodrik (2011) The globalization paradox; why markets, states and democracies can’t coexist, Oxford University Press, Oxford Dani Rodrik is the Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the John

The Kafka Brigade and the "strangling and depersonalising effect of bureaucracy"

Franz Kafka wrote about the strangling and depersonalising effect of bureaucracy. The Kafka Brigade reminds us that people using services have a lot to say about improving them – if only we would listen. Kafka Brigade is an independent, non-profit action research team, comprising a network of action researchers from Amsterdam

Drucker: Innovation and entrepreneurship - advice for the "purposeful entrepreneur"

BOOK REVIEW: Peter F. Drucker (1985) Innovation and entrepreneurship; practice and principles, William Heinmann, London Peter Drucker was born in Vienna in 1909 and educated in Austria and England. He was a renowned business management advisor and a prolific writer. In 2009, four years after his death and 100 years

EARTH University, Costa Rica

Since 1990, EARTH University’s innovative educational approach has been preparing young people from Latin America, the Caribbean and other regions, including Africa and Asia, to contribute to the sustainable development of their countries and construct a prosperous and just society. EARTH offers a rigorous four-year undergraduate program in agricultural

51 Lessons for Donor and Development Agency Support to Business Environment Reforms

Last month, the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) published a paper I prepared on the practice of supporting business environment reform (BER). This is a synthesis of the findings of three practice reviews that I led in Bangladesh (2011), Kenya (2010) and Rwanda (2011). The reports of these country