In this event, we’ll be speaking to leaders of Microfinance at Berkeley. Microfinance at Berkeley is a UC Berkeley business organization that provides pro bono consulting and microfinance services to small businesses in the Bay Area. Committed to uplifting the small business community, their members work closely with small business owners to improve their business operations and alleviate financial burdens, respectively. In addition to these services, they also host a farmer’s market on-campus to better acquaint the UC Berkeley student body with the small business community every semester.

At this event, Todd A. Watkins, PhD, has been a Professor of Economics at Lehigh University since 2015. He was a founding member of the advisory Faculty Council for ACCION International’s Center for Financial Inclusion, which seeks to promote innovation and growth of commercial microfinance worldwide. He has won multiple teaching awards and over $15 million in external research, contract, and training grant funding.

At this event with Kate Cochran on March 28th at 7:15 pm EST. A current leader in microfinance, Ms. Cochran uses her positions at a myriad of organizations, notably Vittana and Upaya Social ventures, to provide financial services and access to higher education to low-income citizens.

She will be discussing her experience at Upaya while answering questions about its mission, approach, and impact. She will talk about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on her company, as well as some of the biggest challenges that have arisen since its founding in 2011.

At this event, we will hear from Martha Chen who is  an International Coordinator of the global research-policy-action network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). She is an experienced development practitioner and scholar; she specializes in employment, gender, and poverty with a focus on the working poor in the informal economy. Before joining Harvard in 1987, she had two decades of resident experience in Bangladesh working with BRAC Bank and in India, where she served as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh.

She will be speaking to us about her experiences with microfinance clients and the role of microfinance in helping them secure their livelihoods in the informal economy.

At this event, we will hear from Professor Ana Demel, the Board of Directors of Pro Mujer. Professor Demel teaches The Law and Business of Microfinance, Financing Development, and Project Finance at the New York University Law School. Prior to 2009, Ana was a partner at the international law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, LLP where her practice focused on international financing and business transactions, particularly in Latin America. Pro Mujer, a social enterprise advancing gender equality in Latin American countries, aims to promote financial inclusion, health, education, and entrepreneurship through gender lens investing and an impact-driven approach.

Pro Mujer is also a field partner for the lending platform Kiva.org. Having distributed 202 million dollars in loans, Pro Mujer has more than 250,000 beneficiaries across Latin America. Professor Demel will speak on her experience as the Chair of the Board of Directors at Pro Mujer and will discuss the intersection of law and entrepreneurship. At the end of the meeting, there will be a Q&A session.

At this event, Professor Counts will tell the story behind the Grameen Foundation and will talk about the Foundation's "People + Technology approach". We will discuss the uses of digital financial services, community agents, and digital farming. 
 We will also hear about Professor Counts' book When in Doubt, Ask for More: And 213 Other Life and Career Lessons for Mission-Driven Leaders.
 Following the presentation, we will open the floor for a Q&A session where everyone has the opportunity to ask questions.

More on Alex Counts, “Professor Alex Counts’s commitment to poverty eradication emerged when he was a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he trained under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank. During his time in Bangladesh, Counts witnessed the development of innovative poverty solutions by Grameen Bank, eventually founded the Grameen Foundation, and became its President and CEO in 1997, after having worked in microfinance and poverty alleviation for ten years.”

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At this event, We will begin this event with short introductions from each of our member organizations in attendance. We hope to foster an environment where our members are collaborating and learning from each other. We will have icebreaker games and challenges so that we may get to know each other better.

We will also have a presentation and Kahoot on the basics of microfinance. This will serve as a fun crash course in microfinance for our new members and a refresher for our returning members.

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At this event, we will be hearing from Ms. Jessica Jackley, Co-Founder and former Chief Marketing Officer of Kiva, the largest crowdfunding microfinance platform. Ms. Jackley revolutionized the microfinance sector through Kiva, enabling all those willing to help the world’s unbanked to advance the cause of microfinance. She will discuss her entrepreneurial journey in establishing the non-profit as well as her latest social ventures. As always, at the end of the event, attendees will have the opportunity engage with Ms. Jackley in a Q&A session. 

More on Ms. Jackley: “Jessica is an entrepreneur, investor, and speaker. Her work over the last decade has focused on financial inclusion, the sharing economy, and social justice….She is best known as a cofounder of Kiva, the world's first crowdfunding site for microenterprises. Kiva lets users lend as little as $25 to individual entrepreneurs, providing borrowers affordable capital to start or expand their business. Since its founding in October 2005, Kiva has facilitated over $1.5B in loans worldwide….Jessica’s work has been widely recognized. Honors include The Economist’s No Boundaries Innovation Award, Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Tech, Silicon Valley Forum’s Visionary Award, the Pasteur Institute’s Common Congress Award, finalist for the TIME 100 Most Influential People list, and more.”

At this event, we will be hearing from Isabelle Wisco, the Chief Executive Officer of the Hilltop Microfinance Initiative, currently the largest student-run microfinance organization in the nation. Based out of Georgetown University, the initiative focuses on lending to small-business owners in the D.C. area, encouraging financial freedom and fostering economic development. Similar to the mission of many high-school microfinance clubs, HMFI aims to provide stable funding to individuals without access to commercial loans. We will be learning in-depth about the structure and operations of the organization, discussing their perspective on what makes an effective loan, how sustainable the impact of a loan can be, and how they measure such sustainability. 

More on the Hilltop Microfinance Initiative.

At this event, we will hear from Mr. Lincoln Wilcox, a global prosperity researcher at the Clayton Christensen Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank founded on the theories of Harvard professor Clayton Christensen and dedicated to improving the world through Disruptive Innovation. Mr. Wilcox will discuss the role of microfinance in alleviating poverty and fostering global development, or in the terms of the Christensen Institute, inspiring global prosperity. We will learn about the other tools and initiatives of poverty alleviation that must be coupled with microfinance in order to impact change and about how we students can engage with these initiatives to further foster global change. At the end of the meeting, there will be for Q&A session, during which students can ask questions about next steps in creating global prosperity, or eradicating poverty at large. We hope to see you all there!

More on Mr. Wilcox: “Lincoln Wilcox is a research associate at the Christensen Institute, where he researches ways in which individuals, businesses, governments, and nonprofits can leverage innovation to create prosperity in low-income countries and communities.

Prior to joining the Institute, Lincoln worked as a communications manager and copywriter at Southern Virginia University. He previously lived in Brazil for two years, where he taught and served in local communities as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in Ghana, where he helped lead multiple humanitarian projects. He has also spent time living in parts of Europe and the Middle East… He earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations with an emphasis in economics from Brigham Young University.”

At this event, Mr. Marcus Berkowitz, the Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Grameen America, will present the findings from Grameen America’s recently-released randomized control, which evaluated the impact of their program on poverty alleviation in the United States. Additionally, Mr. Berkowitz will discuss the impact COVID-19 has had on Grameen borrowers. There will be time for a Q&A session. We hope to see you all there!

More on Mr. Berkowitz: After graduating from Pitzer College with a B.A. in Latin American Studies and Economics, Mr. Berkowitz managed a team at a small bike shop and learned about the management of small businesses. His experience at the bike shop inspired Berkowitz to apply to be Kiva Fellow in Ecuador. With Kiva, Mr. Berkowitz focused on streamlining the flow of borrower data between Kiva and its intermediaries. As the Vice President of Technology & Innovation at Grameen America, he currently focuses on improving and maintaining the company’s technological systems to support operational scale.

Join us on 9/29/20 from 6:45-7:45 EDT for our inaugural event featuring Grameen Foundation CEO Alex Counts!

Professor Alex Counts’s commitment to poverty eradication emerged when he was a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he trained under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank. During his time in Bangladesh, Counts witnessed the development of innovative poverty solutions by Grameen Bank, eventually founded the Grameen Foundation, and became its President and CEO in 1997, after having worked in microfinance and poverty alleviation for ten years. Sparked by a $6,000 seed grant provided by Professor Yunus, the Grameen Foundation has grown to become a leading international humanitarian organization. Moreover, Counts has published four books and has written for The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Miami Herald. Counts is a Cornell University graduate.

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