News & Views

Across the Global South, the coming decades will likely bring rapid urbanization, changing demographics, increased non-communicable disease burden, and a rising threat of pandemics. All of these factors will place unique strains and increased demand on emerging market health systems and their supply chains. A new WDI report, “Designing…

Zenia Lewis’ 2008 summer internship in Malawi was supposed to be an opportunity for her to build upon what she had learned during her first year of a master’s degree in public policy from U-M’s Ford School, acquire a few new skills, and also experience working in a different…

NextBillion, the WDI-affiliated website focused on social entrepreneurship and venture development, has re-launched its financial inclusion blog with a new sponsor and a new name to better reflect the current thinking in the field. The new site is called Financial Health and is sponsored by MetLife Foundation. NextBillion Editor…

WDI celebrated its return to the University of Michigan campus and its newly-renovated Wyly Hall offices with a staff lunch June 1 that included the Institute’s board of directors. For nearly three years, WDI was housed off campus at Domino’s Farms during construction at the Ross School of Business complex,…

Six University of Michigan students representing four schools and colleges will spend the summer abroad working as WDI Global Impact Fellows, tasked with formulating a strategic plan, streamlining supply chains, evaluating program impacts, empowering entrepreneurship, developing financial models, and creating a new business model. The students represent the Ross School…

Rob Liou’s goal after he received his MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business in 2011 was to work in China’s energy sector. Liou was an auditor at a large accounting firm in San Francisco before graduate school but didn’t have a passion for it nor was…

As the academic year comes to a close, the 13 MAP teams organized and funded by WDI have finished their projects and successfully delivered final reports to their sponsoring organizations. Multidisciplinary Action Projects, or MAP for short, is an annual, action-based learning course offered at the Ross School of Business…

The use of technology stacks has been a profoundly important breakthrough for social and financial inclusion in India, and it also opens up many opportunities to transform health care for the poorest residents there. But as these tech-based solutions proliferate in other low and middle-income countries, the health care…

Steven Koltai, who served as the senior advisor of U.S. State Department’s Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP), recently sat down with WDI’s Amy Gillett to discuss practical ways in which entrepreneurship and the training of entrepreneurs can be effective foreign policy tools. Koltai is the author of the book, Peace through Entrepreneurship:…

WDI Publishing, the Institute’s business case study initiative, has unveiled a new e-commerce website that features a clean, more intuitive design, a smoother transaction and checkout process  and more flexibility to update the site with the latest cases, news and events. Key features of the new website are: an improved…