The latest story from TechnoServe is about Peet’s Coffee buying coffee from Rwanda. TechnoServe programs focus on developing entrepreneurs, building businesses and industries, and improving the business environment. Partnering with Peet’s they are working on developing a vibrant coffee industry in war-ravaged Rwanda. Peet’s have announced that they will sell a special blend of the Rwandan coffees in their 191 cafés and online this summer (2009). Business Week (May 4, 2009) has an article about it.
While volunteering at a hospital in rural Ghana in 1968, Ed Bullard, a Connecticut businessman (now deceased), was inspired to start TechnoServe to help hardworking rural people in developing countries harness the power of private enterprise to lift themselves out of poverty. TechnoServe is a hybrid non-profit that helps growing enterprises generate jobs and other income opportunities for poor people, enabling them to improve their lives and secure a better future for their families.
Now operating in many different countries, TechnoServe was been recognized as one of the world’s “Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs” by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Over the past eight years, the Foundation has been selecting 20-30 social entrepreneurs annually from around the world into its network of leading social entrepreneurs.