May 17, 5-7 p.m.

Grameen Foundation Technology Center Open House

Check out our new office and meet Grameen Foundation and Tech Center leadership and staff

David Edelstein, VP of Technology Programs, Alex Counts, President and CEO, Susan McCaw, Peter Bladin

RSVP HERE

Hope to see you there!

There is a great event in New York City later this month worth attending if you are in the Greater Manhattan area or willing to travel.

ACCION USA, Opportunity Fund, and Kiva bring you the Microfinance USA 2011 Conference this May 23-24 in New York City!

Are you interested in local economic development? Are you passionate about being part of the growing microfinance movement in the U.S. – and interested in learning from industry experts about the impact you can make? If so, this conference is not to be missed.

Over two days, you can:

• Network with leading practitioners and researchers in the U.S. microfinance field
• Attend plenary sessions and panels led by the nation’s leading microfinance voices.
• Deepen your understanding of the challenges facing Microfinance Institutions through case-study analysis.
• Experience microfinance first-hand by touring local microenterprises in New York.
• Debate current microfinance topics during small group sessions and networking dinners.
• Discover how people like you are impacting the domestic microenterprise industry in remarkable ways
• Collaborate with microfinance clubs, top researchers and professionals across the country

More information at the conference website.

All over the world people are celebrating the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s Death, waiving American Flags and singing the national anthem of the US.  Even in the middle east, people are celebrating the death rather than opposing the US.  I was writing up some other blog posts before the announcement was made, which of course put my work to a halt.  Now I got to thinking, “Will this affect Microfinace?”  I did a couple quick google searches and didn’t see anything major directly related to Bin Laden and Microfinance.  There will of course be backlash from the operation, but I think that overall, the ties will get better, which will hopefully allow more microfinance exposure in the middle east.  Over the last couple years, I’ve seen people be weary about giving money to non-profits in the middle east, despite some of the great work being done by LendForPeace.org, Kiva and many more.  Additionally, With the recent 60 minutes expose on Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia institute not being 100% factual , with a lot of the money going to the Three Cups of Tea marketing rather than the people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, people have started to loose faith.  However, even with all the hesitation of sending money to the middle east, I think that with today’s annoucement and the hard work of all the agencies in the middle east, I think we should be able to see an uplift in funding going to the middle east.  Now that Bin Laden is dead, donors/lenders will hopefully be more supportive of rebuilding what has been destroyed.  I’m especially interested to see how an organizations like LendForPeace, which focuses primarily in the middle east, will be affected by something this groundbreaking.   Will they be able to prove whether things got better or worse, or will things continue the way they always have?  I have high hopes that organizations like this will be able to prevail, but only time can tell how this will play out.