News/Events

One of the authors of a book presenting a new framework for fighting poverty based on entrepreneurship and market-creating innovation will give an Oct. 11 talk co-sponsored by WDI and Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. 

The talk by Efosa Ojomo, an author of “The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty,” will begin at noon at the U-M School of Social Work in room B780. It is free and open to the public. 

UPDATE: Watch Ojomo’s Oct. 11 talk here:

Ojomo is a senior research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute, a nonprofit think tank that aims to improve pressing global issues such as education, healthcare and economic prosperity through what it calls “disruptive innovation.” 

He leads the Christensen Institute’s Global Prosperity research and works with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen to help entrepreneurs, policy makers and development practitioners stimulate economic prosperity in their regions. Ojomo earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In The Prosperity Paradox, Ojomo, Christensen and third author Karen Dillon, former editor of Harvard Business Review magazine, note why many economic development models fail and how the right kind of innovation can build businesses and lift up countries. Christensen also is the author of several New York Times best-sellers, including “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and “The Innovator’s Solution.”

Poverty Solutions is a university-wide attempt to examine and test models to ease the effects of poverty and disseminate those learnings. Working with community groups and supports active-learning options for students, Poverty Solutions was launched in 2016 by U-M President Mark Schlissel.