The WCNC would like to thank
Carr & Ferrell for sponsoring this event.
Mohammed Yunus pioneered micro-finance in 1976 when he discovered that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to a poor person. Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize for building Grameen Bank into a disruptive financial innovator in one of the world's poorest countries.
Building on Yunus' vision, San Francisco based Kiva.org has catalyzed the growth of micro-finance using the power of the internet. Kiva's unique person-to-person lending platform allows consumers with a computer and a credit card to directly offer small loans to entrepreneurs building businesses thousands of miles away in developing countries.
On February 20, the WCNC will host Premal Shah, President of Kiva.org. At this exclusive WCNC event, Premal will discuss how his passion for helping entrepreneurs in developing countries, combined with his Silicon Valley experience, has moved Kiva.org into the forefront of micro-finance.
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Date: Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Time: 6:00-6:30pm Networking Reception - light dinner. 6:30-7:45pm Talk, Q&A, Networking.
Location: Carr & Ferrell, 2200 Geng Rd., Palo Alto 94303.
Registration: WCNC Members, members of affiliate clubs, and their accompanied guests: $20 per person. Non-member alumni and other guests: $40 per person. If available, $10 additional for tickets purchased after 6:00pm Monday, February 18th. The WCNC's standard cancellation policy applies for this event.
Kiva's success has been widely covered by the media including Forbes and The Economist magazine as well as leaders such as former President Clinton and Oprah Winfrey. In less than three years, Kiva has grown from a cold start to enabling more than 123,000 people lending more than $12.4 million to 18,000 of the world's working poor, with a repayment rate of 99.67%.
Mr. Shah will also discuss key issues including:
- Eliminating large-scale business inefficiencies through the power of the Internet.
- Creating meaningful partnerships, such Kiva.org's alliances with PayPal, Google, and others.
- Leveraging media coverage to boost the success of a powerful idea.
- Developing and nurturing a corps of supporters.
- Building a world class team.
- How WCNC members can get involved in furthering Kiva's mission.
Premal ShahPremal is President of Kiva.org. Prior to Kiva.org, Premal was a Principal Product Manager at PayPal, an eBay company. Prior to PayPal, Premal was a strategy consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in New York. Premal has had a long-standing interest in microfinance. In 1997, he was awarded a grant from Stanford University to research microfinance in Gujarat, India. More recently Premal co-founded the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network and spent 2 months in India working to refine/validate Kiva.org's model. In 2006, Premal was a featured speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative and Global Microcredit Summit. Premal graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.
