SOCAP 2010 took place in San Francisco on Oct 4-6. Over 1200 participants. Energetic, lively, sharing, innovative. Impact investments took center stage.Watch these amazing videos of Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen Fund) Matt Flannery (Kiva) and many more http://video.socialcapitalmarkets.net/live-video-stream/ The first SOCAP Europe will take place in Amsterdam May 31-June 2, 2011.
Kiva.org, the world’s first microlending website announced today its entry into the education field by offering a pilot for student microloans in 3 countries. So beginning today anyone can make a loan starting at USD 25 to students that are selected by Kiva’s first 3 education field partners; Fundacion Paraguaya (Paraguay) IMPRO (Bolivia) and Ameen s.a.l. (Lebanon). Kiva.org an innovative social enterprise created a movement to connect people around the world through lending to alleviate poverty. In only 5 years, Kiva.org has provided over USD 160 mn in loans to 415,000 microentrepreneurs around the world and these loans (which are as little as USD 25) have come from close to half a million lenders spread in 206 countries!
“The pilot was born as a natural extension of Kiva’s mission to connect people, through lending, to alleviate poverty. Kiva Student Microloans give recipients the opportunity to gain new knowledge and skills through higher education or vocational training. As a result, these individuals will be better positioned to find jobs, support their families and grow their communities — and ultimately make a real difference in the relief of global poverty.” (source: Kivablog)
Earlier this month, IDEO, the leading global design consultancy launched OpenIDEO, a collaborative platform to design and create solutions to the world’s toughest challenges. This platform is cool. It starts with a big question (the challenge that needs a creative solution) and uses the design process; brainstorming, conceptualizing and evaluating to create with the online community innovative solutions. A very interesting point is that anyone that collaborates can get recognized accordingly to one’s contribution. OpenIDEO kicked off with Jamie Oliver’s challenge “How can we raise kid’s awareness on the benefits of fresh food so they can make better choices?” so tackling obesity. The second challenge is “How to increase the availability of affordable learning tools and services for students in the developing world?” by Enterterprising Schools, a project of Grey Matters Capital. It reminded me a lot of Ashoka’s Changemakers in that it crowdsources ideas/proposals and let the online community collaborate to create solutions. OpenIDEO is making it easier for everyone to become a changemaker!