recap Jan 9th SVMN mtg w/ Janine Firpo + photos
Posted by svmn on January 17, 2006
thanks to Scott Mattoon for the following SVMN meeting recap:
The Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN) hosted an event Monday, January 9th featuring Janine Firpo, a technologist with direct experience in implementing a technological approach to microfinancing. Her talk focused on a series of market trials in Uganda for a system called Remote Transaction System, orignally developed at HP, which enabled an agent and borrower to administer a small loan remote from the bank. The market being explored by HP, and a central interest of SVMN, is the 80% of working people in the world who do not put their money in banks. One of Janine’s goals is to reach these workers – 1.7 billion of them – with technology, and enable them to participate directly in the world of commerce, extending their means and influence beyond their village to a sphere bounded only by the reach of the technological infrastructure.
(for more on Scott’s summary, continue reading 80% of the world is unbanked)
Here also is a slideshow of pictures from the meeting:
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