Tag Archive for 'Microfinance'

Developing World Venture Capital

Published
by
ron
on December 8, 2007
in Emerging Markets
. 1 Comment

Kiva LoansMicro-loans made to third-world entrepreneurs are changing lives and fortunes around the world. CNBC published an article on success stories on Kiva’s microfinance loans here.

The Kiva wesite was founded by Jessica and Matt Flannery. They were newly weds - he a software engineer, she an MBA student at Stanford - who were convinced they could use the Internet to put people in need together with people willing to help. Anyway, this is how Kiva works.

Kiva Loan Cycle

Sphere: Related Content

What’s on my mind these days?

Published
by
admin
on November 15, 2007
in Global Strategy and Ranting and Raving
. 2 Comments

Planet Earth as seen from the moon!

  • What the next big thing will be?
  • What I was doing exactly a year ago?
  • What will happen if China stumbles? Alright, Daniel Altman was so kind to answer my question here?
  • Why “innocent drinks” are so little and overpriced but so damn tasty?
  • Why there is still no usage of cameras and other technologies in football matches to rectify the referee decision?
  • Why greater flexibility is advised for logos and branding? ooh wait Wolff Olins comes with a solution here and here! Love it!
  • Why Wordpress doesn’t let me wrap text around an image easily?
  • Why I didn’t come up with the idea for Facebook?
  • On the Facebook note, would it be better for a company/charity to have a profile on Facebook, or a group? I think my preference now goes out to a profile. Makes it easier to follow what they do, since it’ll show up on the feeds on my Facebook homepage. I still haven’t figured out how (if) to get the changes on my groups on my RSS feeds.
  • Why brand management or advertisement agencies always have the coolest and most innovate website designs? Please check out the new Wolff Olins site. Lovely!
  • How International Herald Tribune (IHT) can always pull it off to be higher ahead of the curve with respect to usability of its webpage? I was quite some time I visited the webpage but I think the current layout is quite 2.0! E.g. you can listen to each news article, write a comment, and even translate the text. Furthermore, the layout is very comfortable, dynamic, and interactive, and still clean!
  • How cool this new project (the World Beach Project) at the V&A is.
  • How interesting it is that Ebay is copying Kiva’s idea at their new website Microplace (source: this article in Businessweek).
  • Where my favourite (blue) t-shirt has gone?
  • Where I will work and live in three and ten years from now? Asia? Europe?
  • Where I will go for my next holiday? USA, Canada, Brazil?
Sphere: Related Content

Ending Global Poverty | Microfinance

Published
by
admin
on April 3, 2007
in Emerging Markets and International Business
. 0 Comments

Micro Finance

Today I watched a very inspiring speech given by Muhammad Yunus (Founder and Managing Director, Grameen Bank; 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) at the Council on Foreign Relations on Microcredit. Anyone interested in Microfinance and economic devleopment, please check out this inspiring speech of Muhammad Yunus.

Basically Microfinance envisioned providing financial services such as Microcredit, Microsavings, or Microinsurance to the poor people in this world, in order to empower those people to become self-sufficient. Amongst others I really like the Microcredit peer-to-peer business idea by Kiva. You and I can provided small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

In 2005 The Economist already published a special survey on Microfinance. In a previous post I already wrote about Kiva.

Sphere: Related Content