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Opportunities Without Borders Kicks off First Year

FORT COLLINS - Opportunities Without Borders (OWOB) announced the beginning of its innovative online business research network on March 15. Based in Fort Collins, Colo, USA, the OWOB business research network connects social entrepreneurs with university researchers throughout the world. “OWOB makes business research accessible,” says Chris Fry, OWOB Executive Director. “Not only will it be high quality and reasonably priced but it will be able to provide research by people who are local to the target market.” Jim Epstein, OWOB Co-founder and current Board of Directors member adds that the venture’s timing could not be better. “OWOB is launching just as social entrepreneurship is picking up steam. Many universities around the world are interested in social entrepreneurship. OWOB will give researchers in these universities and social entrepreneurs the opportunity to work together.” OWOB’s collaborative model has already seen succes. In late 2008, PowerMundo, a for profit clean energy distributor business based in Fort Collins, used OWOB to pair with a researcher from Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana, and gained access to necessary market information. “The market research we received from the Ashesi team would have been very difficult for us to collect on our own,” said Jacob Castillo, PowerMundo co-Founder. “Working with OWOB has helped us solidify our plans for the West African market.” Fry says that during its initial year, OWOB will be working to build its research network, both locally and internationally. “Lots of university, faculty and student researchers is the key to our network’s success.” Fry reports that he has had a positive response to the start-up network from all universities contacted from Ghana, India, Mexico and the USA. “I’m excited to see the interest from both the social entrepreneurs and the university researchers. OWOB has a bright future and I’m pleased to be a part of it. ### About OWOB: OWOB’s Board of Directors formed the organization in 2006 on the premise that helping to strengthen developing economies leads to greater social and economic cohesion world wide. OWOB received official Non-Profit status from the USA government in March 2009.