The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Learning Lab™ grew out of the research and writings of Dr. Stuart L. Hart in the late 1990’s. His pivotal article, “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,” co-authored with CK Prahalad, provided the intellectual argument for setting a business agenda that focused on improving the lives of the approximately 4 billion people in the world who live on less than $5 US per day. Rather than using traditional aid methodologies to help the poor, this innovative paradigm uses business methods to stimulate new business development and access to new markets.

As a result, the BoP Learning Lab™ was founded in January, 2000 with the objective of establishing a consortium of leading thinkers and practioners interested in exploring new business opportunities in low-income communities that would benefit the organization as well as the local community. The initial meeting welcomed a small group of academics, corporations and NGOs which included Collins & Aikman, DuPont, Ford Motor Co, Hewlett Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, Procter & Gamble, Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), Tata Energy Research Institute, N.A. (TERI-NA), Waterhealth Int’l, and World Resources Institute (WRI).

Initially, the BoP Learning Lab™ met regularly in the USA, but increasingly, there was a desire to expand this community to other regions including those that are deeply entangled in issues of poverty. As a result, over the past several years this small group of participants has evolved from an isolated consortium to a global network of BoP Learning Labs™. By 2006 BoP Learning Labs™ were established in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Spain and the Netherlands. We are currently working on creating BoP Learning Labs™ in South Africa and India.