OK, Jeff Mowatt in charge of the revenue end of P-CED which provides our core funding for work in Ukraine. Past history (before my joining) was to source microfinance in Tomsk Russia leading to the creation of the Russian Microfinance Center.

In Oct 2006 we delivered our microeconomic strategy paper which includes national scale availability of microfinance, affordable broadband and funding for social enterprise.

Progress so far has been to influence 2 policy decisions in the host country, Ukraine and persuade the US to launch the East Europe Foundation.

http://www.p-ced.com/projects/uk raine/national/

The model we propose, is that which was proposed to Clinton in 1996, as people-centered economic development, which resembles the Bill Gates concept of Creative Capitalism.

http://www.p-ced.com/about/histo ry/

Congratulations to all at MIT for the most lively microcredit uni network I have seen. The Microloan Foundation party on 3 Feb at Sloan Management School was fantastic.

I look forward to hearing any links between micro-up student clubs across cities and yes we can networks. 18-25 years olds have an absolutely pivotal part on ensuring that we never again fall into the traps that Wall Street led big banking into. These next few months are critical to linking community sustaining projects all across USA. Are there any other university cities up for anything like what Boston's youth are connecting? We are hoping that Dr Yunus will host a special youth summit dialogue to celebrate all young peoples projects -more news soon

Report from the number 1 brand on main street to promote microcredit please mail info@worldcitizen.tv if you know of a bigger usa brand than whole foods , leading supermarket chain, that includes a promotion on microcredit for more than 10% of its year of operations- every whole foods store carries a microcredit promotion for 6 weeks - 209's being mid February to End-march

after a field trip , it sure needs encouraging by every fan of microcredit (something which in usa will go up and up as big banking goes down and down) -and yet up in commuter rockville the leaflets banner headlines "empower the poor through microcredit" were clearly mystifying a good three quarters of the public (an interesting surburban action learning challenge!)

by coincidence the one employee I could find who wanted to talk about her experiences had spent time at wholeplanet's guatamala microcredit; an area beloved by many of the DC student networks I connect with

her wholefoods business card is titled "green mission specialist"

she stated that her own guatemala visit was done as a volunteer; she then seemed to say that the general public can join in trips to wholefoods sites but of course general public has to pay a typical package tour price- she mentined something called the global vision allaince but i cant make any sense out of searching that

a heartening side of this is that every leaflet has a promising definition that cant get twisted wrong way round

WHAT IS MICROCREDIT & HOW DOES IT WORK?

Microcredit is small loans - usually $300 or less - requiring no collateral or contract. They are offered to the poorest of the poor, with a focus on women, to finance self-employment projects and generate income. Whole Planet Foundation is focusing efforts on the developing world communities that supply Whole Food Market Stores with products such as fruit, vegetables, tean and coffee. Providing the poor in these communites with access to credit empowers them to lift themselves out of poverty. In 2007 you helped us reach impoverished communities in central america; in 2008 in Kenya and Ethiopia; in 2009 we hope to raise $1 million for impoverished communities in S. America.

There is a lot more on the microcredit program at http://wholeplanetfoundation.org

One other thing I hadnt been uptodate on before reading the lealets is the where we work- WPF microlending projects in communities where whole foods sources product Latin America: Costa Rica & Honduras (bananas), Guatemala & Nicaragua (coffee) United States - Queens NYC -dairy Africa: Kenya & Ethiopia, Coffee Asia: East Timor & Indonesia, Coffee; Nepal -tea; Thailand - rice; India -spices

chris macrae dc region bureau 301 881 1655 http://wholeplanet.tv

I received this upday relating to a march 9 meeting involving the microfinance subgroup of this competiton

IDEAS 09

Innovation + Development + Enterprise + Action + Service Microfinance Symposium • Hear talks by microfinance and development leaders • Get immediate feedback from MIT professors for the IDEAS Competition deadline • Talk to judges and learn more about what you can do to win a grant Monday, March 9 7-9pm 32-155 Connect at ned.com or for more info email ideasmicrofinance at mit.edu

Good to see that

MIT has both a yunus comepetition http://web.mit.edu/ideas/www/cha llenge.htm

a microcredit competition http://web.mit.edu/ideas/www/

and an entrepreneurial competition http://web.mit.edu/ideas/www/abo ut.htm

all interconnecting - look forward to my day trip to boston on monday to explre mre

Thanks to the discussion, what I would to ask how do you get these kind of women involved? what are they supposed to do to get this microcret rather the creteria.

Hello Peter. The idea is the women can work with the teams of students from MIT who are trying to come up with better and different ways to do microfinance. So the Ugandan women will offer their ideas and feedback in the forum here to the MIT teams working on their ideas.

did we ever get a debrief on winners of the mit competition? this year I have twice travelled on the overnight sleeper from dc to boston and back the next night; the 2 days I sent networking with MIT and other boston students and entrepreneurs were as brillaint as any experiences of networking I can remember; I wish there was a way we could make ned a place that a mass of boston networks used

Chris, Lars has not posted on Ned since last October. Without Lars, I guess this thread was doomed to struggle.

I share your enthusiasm for online networking with students and entrepreneurs. I don't see why Ned could not be made a place they habitually used.

If you were stick around a few days and take stock, perhaps you might like to join in the Ned plot discussion and workspace