Girls In Tech

Before I head off to New Orleans to ring in the new year, I wanted to bring your attention to some highly effective non-profits that are doing AMAZING work and changing lives of women and children in the US and around the world.  Happy giving and happy new year to everyone!!

Kiva is the first website and online platform to connect lenders and borrowers for micro-finance loans. 82% of Kiva’s loans go to female entrepreneurs.

Samasource was part of the fbFund REV social incubator class of 2009 and uses crowdsourcing to bring dignified, computer-based work to women, youth and refugees living in poverty.

International Justice Mission works to rescue  and assist victims of slavery, sexual exploitation  and other forms of violent oppression.

Kiva is celebrating, not only turning 4, but also nearing its milestone of $100 million in microloans to small business entrepreneurs around the world! They are celebrating this event on November 3rd by co-hosting a party at the BrowerCenter in Berkeley, with The Hub Bay Area and GOOD Magazine. So, come help toast their 4 years of wonderful work with Kiva and these two great organizations.

There will be two floors of music and beats from around the globe, including Baba Ken and the Afrobeat Connexion, Shovelman, Gaucho Gypsey Jazz Band, and Erin Brazil. Food from the Slanted Door, Café Gratitude, Neighborhood Fruit, FeelGood Grilled Cheese, and others. Drinks generously provided by Drake’s Brewing Company, Barefoot Winery, and SKYY Vodka. 

Together, we will share the underlying story of Kiva’s milestone and the global inspiration it has created through pioneering community building for social change.  I hope you can make it on November 3rd!

For tickets & to RSVP, see their link at:
http://kivaatthehub.eventbrite.com/%20%0A.
Details:
Date: Tues, November 3, 2009
Time: 6:30 – 9:30 PM
Place: HUB Berkeley at The David Brower Center
2150 Allston Way
Suite 400
Berkeley, CA

I was recently introduced to the non-profit organization, CARE, by a friend CEO of WITI, David Leighton. After reading through the organization’s site and learning more about their upcoming Global Action Forum, I was inspired to write a blog entry and promote such an amazing movement.  As citizens of the world, it is our responsibility to help create solutions to end poverty in developing countries. With the technology and innovation that surrounds our daily lives, there is no reason why we can’t continue to create platforms to get resources to those who need it the most. Thanks to RoomtoRead, Kiva, Samasource, Extraordinaries for serving as great examples for this social entrepreneurship movement.

This movement is underway to inspire people across the United States to take action against global poverty. On Sunday, September 13, at the Power to the Peaceful Global Action Forum & Celebration in San Francisco, you can learn from local and international social change advocates about how you can make substantive difference on behalf of the world’s poor.

Founded by singer, activist, and CARE Ambassador Michael Franti, Power to the Peaceful is an organization dedicated to the promotion of cultural coexistence, nonviolence and environmental sustainability through the arts and music. Cohosted by Power to the Peaceful and CARE, the Global Action Forum & Celebration will feature representatives from CARE, Back to Earth, the Office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Potentia Foundation, Room to Read, Spark, UC Berkeley, Vitamin Angels, and others in conversation about critical issues including global climate change, girls’ empowerment, and hunger and food security. Each session will examine challenges and solutions, and participants will leave with tangible strategies to affect change at home and around the world. Special guests include artists, dancers and musicians.

The Forum will close with a reception and celebration featuring an acoustic concert by Michael Franti and friends, a presentation of the Stay Human award to a celebrated humanitarian, and much more.

To purchase tickets, please click here.

On Wednesday, Girls in Tech hosted a panel discussion on “How Microfinance is Changing the Way We Live” featuring an all-star group of women who are leading the charge in microfinance today.  Emily Gasner, executive director of TMC Development Working Solutions, Ashwini Narayanan, general manager at MicroPlace, Casey Wilson co-founder of Wokai, Michelle Kreger, microfinance partnerships manager at Kiva, and Shubha Shankaran, co-founder of United Prosperity shared their personal stories about how they came to be involved with microfinance, and how their organizations are using microfinance loans to help the working poor build self-sustaining businesses to pull themselves out of poverty.

While some organizations mainly provide only microfinance loan support to the poor, TMC Working Solutions and Wokai also provide training and support to help borrowers be better entrepreneurs with technical and business plan development assistance.  This increases the likelihood that the business will be successful and the loan repaid.

Throughout the evening it was clear that the panelists all shared two traits: a deep passion for their work and a deep love of their jobs!  What lucky women!  To be sure, there were many of us in the audience who wanted to know how we could get involved in microfinance.  Michelle from Kiva suggested that people start by going to Kiva.org to view the stories of borrowers, and start lending to get a sense for what it feels like.  For those with language skills, she suggested volunteering translation services to Kiva by translating borrowers’ stories and profiles in their native language to English.  Finally, she stressed getting on-the-ground field experience as the best way to get your foot in the door.

Emily from TMC Working Solutions pointed the audience to MicroMentor.org and suggested people who are interested in microfinance join the group Women Advancing Microfinance, where members meet once a month to provide professional development and support to each other and discuss  opportunities and innovation in the industry.

A big thanks to all of wonderful panelists for sharing their personal stories with us and giving us a glimpse into the power of microfinance to greatly impact the lives of the working poor.  Also, special thanks to Sundeep Ahuja, co-founder and president of The Extraordinaries, for moderating the evening’s panel.

August 19, 2009

6:00 pm

Girls in Tech cordially invites you to attend
How Microfinance is Changing the Way We Live
featuring Kiva, Wokai, Microplace, TMC Working Solutions and PayPal

Microfinance is changing the way we look at sustainable living, economic development and welfare throughout the globe, even in the US.

During this Girls in Tech panel discussion we will highlight some of the most influential and powerful women in the microfinance world, as they share the trials and tribulations of running a microfinance or a microlending organization, share inspirational stories on helping women run businesses succeed in developing countries, provide insights on how technology is advancing global economies and more.

What is Microfinance?
Microfinance refers to the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed. The term also refers to the practice of sustainably delivering those services. Microcredit (or loans to poor microenterprises) should not be confused with microfinance, which addresses a full range of banking needs for poor people.

More broadly, it refers to a movement that envisions “a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers.” Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty.

RSVP at: http://gitmicrofinance.eventbrite.com/

As a big fan of Kiva.org, I wanted to share a great new campaign that LimeLife just launched called “Apps for Good”.  LimeLife, which is a women’s cross-platform digital media company, is contributing 10% of profits from its Hollywood Hangman iPhone game within a one-month period from May 21st to June 21st to Kiva.org.

Giving back to non-profits is so important and Kiva is a great organization because it gives women in developing countries the opportunity to achieve economic independence. By encouraging people to participate in Apps For Good, LimeLife will pave the way for people like Amavi Akoete, a Togoan 35 year-old mother of six to launch her jewelry-making business or Dulia Huanca, a Peruvian 23 year-old mother to launch her fruit stand.

If you’d like to participate in the Apps for Good Campaign, follow these steps:
1.)  Between today and June 21st, click on the following link to purchase and download Hollywood Hangman for your iPhone or iPod Touch:
http://itunes.com/apps/hollywoodhangman
2.)  You are encouraged to email, tweet, and update your social networking status to let your friends know how they can download Hollywood Hangman on their iPhone or iPod Touch
3.)  You can use the Facebook Connect feature within the game to ping your friends to join them in playing Hollywood Hangman to support Kiva
4.)  You can track the progress of LimeLife’s Apps for Good Campaign by following the LimeLife iPhone Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/LimeLifeiPhone

Last week I spent the better part of three days in Palo Alto at the annual meeting for the National Center of Women in Technology (NCWIT). Over the three days, the speaker that inspired me most was Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, the world’s first micro-lending marketplace for the working poor.

Kiva works by connecting entrepreneurs in the developing world with lenders (people like you and me) who provide interest-free loans via the Kiva.org website. Millions of dollars in loans are provided each month to the working poor in over 50 developing countries. With a loan of only a few hundred dollars, the working poor are able to invest in a self-staining future. Examples of types of investments include the purchase of a cow to plow land, or purchase of materials to build a fruit stand.

Jessica emphasized four principles that have been key to Kiva’s success.

Know Your Mission – Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for poverty alleviation.

Stay Open – Kiva adopted crowdsourcing, which opened up the opportunity for volunteers to log onto Kiva’s site and translate people’s stories from all over the world. Everyone can give in their own way.

Iterate – Kiva took a simple idea and launched in 2005 with a site that consisted of only three pages. Today Kiva offers individual stories and profiles in many languages and provides a myriad of ways for people to build community and contribute.

Focus on Individuals – Kiva empowers individuals on both sides of the equation. Borrowers gain hope for a better, self-sustaining life, while the site gives lenders tools to easily build lending teams and spread the word about Kiva organically.  Kiva’s intense focus on individuals also allows it to have a loan pay-back rate in the high 90s.

Kiva’s growth has been phenomenal and these principles can certainly be applied to for profit and non-profit businesses alike.

It is amazing how the areas of microfinance and social good have become so sexy while traditional businesses are struggling to stay alive. It’s a tough time for a lot of us, but overall, perhaps the massive disruption of wealth will help us appreciate the important things in life, and replace our emphasis on wealth with that of meaning. Technology has powerfully transformed the way we live, breathe and do business. Why not harness technology as Kiva does — to disrupt poverty and advance social good.  That’s what I call having your cake and eating it too.

A lot of people don’t look forward to Mondays.  It’s usually the start of a long, jam-packed, stressful week — and these days, it’s an even longer week as people work more hours to show their commitment and try to lessen their chances of getting laid off.

At times like these it’s important to bring balance back into our lives.  And I found myself very much looking forward to Monday this week because I had a volunteer appointment with the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP) in San Francisco.   The charter of HPP is to end family homelessness.  They do this by offering a variety of programs, including helping families find homes, providing drug and family counseling, prenatal and parenting education , family violence prevention, ESL classes, computer classes, and on-the-job-paid internships that prepare formerly homeless mothers for the workforce.   On the day that I volunteered, I distributed food to homeless families. To donate or give the gift of time to HPP, click here.

Now is a great time for us to pitch in, forget our own problems for a little while, and gain perspective and balance by helping those who are struggling with life’s necessities — food, shelter and safety.  There’s no gift like the gift of hope.  And lucky us, there are  so many opportunities for giving.  You can find the cause that resonates most with you through Volunteer Match, or view a calendar of volunteer opportunities at One Brick.  If you’re interested in giving abroad, check out Kiva, the first person-to-person microlending website that allows you to give microloans to the working poor in developing countries.  Today, I loaned money towards a Cambodian woman’s purchase of two cows for breeding and plowing her small plot of land.

A funny thing about volunteering, giving can be extremely rewarding.  My good friend Lisa met her future husband while at a One Brick volunteer outing — they got to know each other while planting flowers in the Golden Gate Park.  A year later I attended their wedding.  Giving and receiving very much go hand in hand.

I hope this blogpost inspires you to give, and I would love to hear about your experiences with volunteering.  Please share your story by adding a comment!