BOP Blips

- Nice to see IDDS get a shout out in this month's Fast Company calendar. This will start on July 8 in Kumasi, Ghana. Two Colorado State students, Sule Amadu (Cohort 1 and recent grad) and Habib Anwar (our new Cohort 3), will be helping out, and Bryan Willson and I will be there for part of the program. Full time faculty will include Amy Smith (MIT), Ben Linder (Olin), and Ariel Philips who will be hosted by KNUST's John Quansah and Crossman Hormenoo. The program ends in time for the participants to be part of the Maker Faire Africa in Accra from 14-16 August.

- For another GSSE team blog, check out: Organic Oasis and their aquaponics venture in Peru.

-To see a lot of electrons being being burned on the aid vs entrepreneurship debate, take a look at Easterly's blog and Maggate Wade's post on Huffington. My take- we need African Cheetahs, but they need to figure out where the real game is. (Hint: maybe not attacking MV tours!) I know there is an argument that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but I think that beating up on Jeffrey Sachs is not a particularly useful undertaking at this point. I had been pleased that Easterly's blog was beginning to have more of a focus on identifying true Searchers, but I don't think he can help himself from rising to MV bait. I guess his self-identified role is critic. But I hope he continues to promote Cheetahs/Searchers, study them and let others know what is working, rather than the harping on what isn't working for the Planners. What doesn't work can be instructive, but not as instructive as what works. When one learns to paint, one studies the masters. Inquiring minds want to know: Who are Easterly's masters? I hope that is his next book.

- Panda Bikes, started by GSSE grads John McKinney, Mark Schlink and Jacob Costillo got a nice segment on Denver's Channel 7 tonight! The first organic bamboo bike for under $1000. On sale soon! Here is the video link.