The 'Bottom of the Pyramid' Approach: Responsible Capitalism or Business as Usual? Yesterday evening I took part in a Public Debate at Sad Business School, organised by the Centre for New Economies of Development - a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford, Sussex and Edinburgh.  The event also saw the launch of a new website to encourage academic discussion and knowledge sharing on the BoP: responsiblebop.com Below is a slightly expanded version of my remarks. There is something incredibly exciting happening at the interface of business and international development.  Something that flies in the face of the traditional ideological positions that people have taken in past, and that some seem adamant to maintain.  Something filled with an energy and positivity that I have not seen in my 20 years working on international development. Don't let today's debate format fool you .  Because at the heart of what is happening right now is a level of collaboration and innovative partnering unlike anything that has come before. Perhaps most exciting is that the starting point is a clear understanding of what poor people themselves see as their strategy for achieving a better life for their families. Getting a job or growing a business .   Development has for too long seen poor people as passive recipients of a paternalistic and frankly patronizing approach to development.  But now, poor people are being viewed as agents of their own development. What we are seeing now is a flourishing of innovative business models that seek to