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Wednesday, August 19, 2009 from 6:00 PM - 9:00 AM (PT)
Girls in Tech cordially invites you to attend
How Microfinance is Changing the Way We Live
featuring Microplace, Kiva, Wokai, TMC Working Solutions and United Prosperity
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.
Moderator: Sundeep Ahuja
Sundeep Ahuja is Co-Founder & President of The Extraordinaries, which delivers micro-volunteer opportunities to mobile phones that can be done on-demand and on-the-spot. Sundeep also advises several cause-oriented platforms, including Kiva.org, eduFire, and Change.org. Previously, Sundeep was a Co-Founder at richrelevance; he has marketing experience from Kiva.org, product management experience from MySpace and eBay, and finance experience from JPMorgan H&Q. Sundeep holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University.
MICROPLACE
Ashwini Narayanan, General Manager
Ashwini is responsible for the company’s overall strategy and operations. She leads a team of talented and dedicated individuals who are motivated by an audacious vision – that every day people can empower a billion of the world’s poor to work their way out of poverty. Ashwini joined MicroPlace in 2006 to head product strategy and was responsible for building out MicroPlace’s product and business platform. Her contribution to MicroPlace reflects over 10 years of experience in designing, building and managing products in the e-commerce and payment industries. Before joining MicroPlace, Ashwini worked at PayPal as Director of Financial Services for North America. Prior to that, Ashwini was responsible for product strategy as Sr. Director of Product for CyberSource and Product Unit Manager (Authorize.net) at InfoSpace. Ashwini has an undergraduate degree in Physics, a diploma in computer science and an MBA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Ashwini is an avid reader and swimmer and dabbles in an eclectic range of activities outside work that have recently include yoga, mentoring, dancing, drum lessons and courses in psychology and philosophy.
MicroPlace’s mission is to help alleviate global poverty by enabling everyday people to make investments in the world’s working poor. Our idea is simple. Microfinance institutions around the world have discovered an effective way to help the world’s working poor lift themselves out of poverty. These organizations need capital to expand and reach more of the working poor. At the same time, millions of everyday people here in the United States are looking for ways to make investments that yield a financial return while making a positive impact on the world. MicroPlace simply connects investors with microfinance institutions looking for funds. The result: more microfinance in the world, satisfied investors, and above all, fewer people living in poverty.
KIVA
Chelsa Bocci, Community Marketing Director
Chelsa has been with Kiva from the beginning and was responsible for establishing Kiva's Microfinance Partnerships program where she managed a great deal of relationships with Kiva's Field Partners, primarily in Africa, and oversaw Kiva's Microfinance Operations programs; Inventory Management and Kiva's expansive Fellows Program. Chelsa is currently responsible for growing and further engaging Kiva's community through three channels: Kiva Lending Teams, Social Networks, and Events. Prior to Kiva, Chelsa was a Corporate Recruiter and Immigration Specialist with Barclays Global Investors. She returned to the U.S. following a period of extensive world travel and work abroad; including Social Work with HIV-positive children in South Africa and tsunami relief efforts in Thailand and Indonesia. Chelsa received her B.S. in Psychology from Santa Clara University, and has completed certifications in Social Performance Management, Framework for Reporting/Analysis/Monitoring/ Evaluation (FRAME), Behavioral Interviewing/Talent Selection, Risk Management Strategies, and Human Resource Management.
Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe. The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.
WOKAI
Casey Wilson, co-founder
Casey Wilson and Courtney McColgan met in 2006 while studying at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Casey wanted to help the impoverished lift themselves from poverty. Courtney wanted to build on her previous experience in microfinance and make a lasting impact. Based on their common vision to better the lives of China's rural poor, Casey and Courtney set out to address the constraints limiting microfinance from having widespread impact in China. At the same time, they wanted to increase the international focus on microfinance in China. After extensive research, brainstorming, and fieldwork, Wokai was born.
Wokai is a 501c3 non-profit organization that enables Chinese people to lift themselves from poverty. Wokai is Chinese for "I start," demonstrating our commitment to helping the impoverished help themselves. Through our website, we connect contributors worldwide with entrepreneurs in rural China to help them start small businesses. We are based in Oakland, California, with core operations in Beijing. We also have active Chapters in San Francisco, Seattle and New York, with more than 80 active representatives. We rely on fundraising events, grants, corporate sponsorships and individual donors for funding. We will eventually cover our costs associated with Field Partner evaluation, monitoring and training, website development, and public outreach, through the optional 10% donation that contributors can add when funding an entrepreneur's loan. For a more detailed description, we invite you to watch this presentation that Wokai's Co-Founder and CEO, Casey Wilson, recently gave at Google.
UNITED PROSPERITY
Shubha Shankaran: Co-Founder & Director, Community Development Shubha has been involved in setting up United Prosperity along with her husband, Bhalchander Vishwanath. Her current efforts focus on community outreach through various events as well as building the online community. While her professional backgound is in the field of neuroscience, she is passionate about the cause of ending poverty by empowering women. She holds a Bachelors and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and also works as Director, Neurobiology at KineMed, a biotech company inEmeryville, CA. United Prosperity (http://www.unitedprosperity.org), based in Pleasant Hill, CA is a non-profit organization that helps the general public combat extreme global poverty powerfully by multiplying the impact of their money throughloan guarantees. We are the world’s first person to person loan guaranteeing website. With United Prosperity’s unique model, anyone can become a guarantor for an entrepreneur they choose and provide a loan guarantee of sometimes as little as $10. The contributions from many such guarantors enables a microfinance institution (MFI) to receive a larger loan from a local bank that would not have been possible otherwise. The MFI then loans that money to the entrepreneurs and on loan repayment, guarantors get their money back. Operations launched in May, 2009 and so far nearly 100 entrepreneurs living in one of India’s poorest states have been funded by guarantors from 15 countries.
TMC WORKING SOLUTIONS
Emily Gasner, Executive Director
Emily Gasner has assisted hundreds of local microenterprises and small businesses access the capital, resources and support they need to grow and succeed. She was honored with the 2008 San Francisco District Small Business Administration’s Financial Services Champion of the Year Award. Prior to Working Solutions, Emily worked at the Friends of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women where she planned development and awards events. Emily holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish and Women’s Studies from Georgetown University and a Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco. She serves as the Secretary of Women Advancing Microfinance Northern California and is a volunteer for Georgetown University Admissions interviewing prospective Bay Area students.
TMC Development Working Solutions is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to serving new and existing businesses throughout the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. We Provide the Following Services: Microloans (Small Business Loans $5,000 to $25,000) Technical Assistance and One-On-One Support No-Cost Referrals to Local Business Resources Educational Presentations on Access to Capital.
http://www.tmcworkingsolutions.org/
Girls in Tech is a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology. As young women with the capacity to inspire, we made it our personal desire and passion to create and sustain an organization that focuses on the collaboration, promotion, growth and success of women in the technology sector.
Created in February of 2007, ‘Girls in Tech’ (GIT) was founded by Adriana Gascoigne. GIT and was born out of a need to provide a place for women to cultivate ideas around their careers and business concepts involving technology.
Girls in Tech aims to offer a variety of resources and tools for women to supplement and further enhance their professional careers and aspirations in technology. Some of these resources include, educational workshops and lectures, networking functions, round table discussions, conferences, social engagements, and recruitment events.
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