Last night, the Silicon Valley Micro-finance Network offered a dynamic evening with guest speakers Premal from Kiva and Chris Larson from Prosper.com. There must have been 200+ people there because of the huge interest in the guest speakers. They spoke of their dreams and the future of their organizations. Premal was especially uplifting with his dedication to helping the poorest of the poor and asking that Kiva lenders take a risk with their investments - not only investing in proven MFI projects. Help the new MFIs and their clients. Make a real difference.
I got there a little late with a fellow Prosper investor and Kiva volunteer Portuguese translator, Dan Foster. Standing in the back of the room, I could see Matt Flannery from Kiva and the heads of Charlie and Diane in the front row. I recognized them from their picture on the Kiva Friends forum. After the presentation, I introduced myself to Charlie and Diane. Just really gentle nice people, dedicated to helping humanity. Gave me that good feeling. Reminded me of my Berkeley friends of the 1960s. I introduced them to our former Kiva fellow in Honduras, Daniela Greville.
Another micro-finance colleague, Sean Foote, was there. He was hobbling on a broken foot!!!! He's a venture capitalist in Palo Alto, CA, and teaches an 8 class-series on micro-finance at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. I guest lectured for him last year - transparency, CAMEL standards, and general operating processes for a well run MFI. Student evaluations of last year's class found those subjects very much to their liking and requested more. Sean has requested that I repeat the lecture with further enhancements when I speak to his class in October 2007.
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