When her baby was sick, Deepa Kahar's (left) health insurance through Opportunity covered treatment and medicine.

After all, our financial services for clients all over the world–including savings products, small business loans and microinsurance—can often mean the difference between providing for their families or being unable to make ends meet. These critical financial safety nets are the keys to protecting people from sliding deeper into poverty in the face of financial hardship or unexpected disaster.

This week, we’re giving you one more great way to support our work by buying one of Sevenly’s limited edition tees or a hoodie. We’ll be featured on sevenly.org until Monday, February 6th at 9:59 a.m. PST (11:59 a.m. CST). T-shirts are $22, hoodies are $35, and $7 of every sale goes to help us end poverty. See one of the tees below and check out the rest of the designs on sevenly.org.

Remember, the items are only available until Monday and when they’re gone, they’re gone for good. Sevenly says, “When we say ‘gone,’ we mean FOR-EV-ER.”So take this chance to buy now and wear your Sevenly shirt or hoodie with pride!

Click here to watch new video on credit-suisse.com featuring Opportunity's technological innovations in Malawi, and the impact they have on the lives and businesses of rural clients like Ellen Patrick (pictured).

In addition, Credit Suisse has just completed a new video, “Banking on Wheels in Malawi,” about their visit to Opportunity Malawi’s microfinance operations. It features two very compelling client stories, interviews with Alefa Mtungia (south regional manager) and Antoni Musonzo (a loan officer from Blantyre), and highlights our mobile banking strategy, including cell phones, ATMs, biometric fingerprint technology, and more. It also emphasizes the importance of financial literacy, especially regarding savings. Finally, you can also find Opportunity featured on Credit Suisse’s Corporate Responsibility homepage.

We’re grateful for institutional strategic partners like Credit Suisse and for contributors like you who make it possible to bring life-changing opportunity to people living in extreme poverty around the world.

Insurance client James Abuh-Prah in Accra, Ghana.

• During 2011, MicroEnsure grew ten-fold in Africa to cover more than one million people in Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania. Within two years, the company expects to serve more than five million people in Africa, the vast majority of whom have never had access to insurance.

• In the past year, MicroEnsure has nearly doubled the number of people it covers in Ghana by partnering with a telecommunications company Tigo, which uses the product to reward loyal customers with free insurance.

• In Tanzania and Kenya, MicroEnsure is testing health insurance for coffee-growing farmers in the Kilimanjaro area. It provides in-patient and out-patient care to farmers and their families by using local private health clinics.

Insurance helps clients like James (pictured), who successfully grew his electronics business only to lose everything to devastating floods, avoid sliding back into poverty when disaster strikes. James took out a loan from Opportunity Ghana that included life insurance for him and his family, disability insurance, and property insurance to cover his business against catastrophic loss. Within days of filing his claim, James received a payout for the value of his business so that he could clean up, re-stock and get back to supporting his family. MicroEnsure helps clients like James maintain the foothold out of poverty they have worked so hard to achieve.

For more news on MicroEnsure’s growth, visit microensure.com »

Opportunity Uganda clients like Betty Aute have access to electricity because of the new solar panel loan product.

In November, Opportunity Uganda launched a solar energy microfinance loan to provide power to families currently living with no or unreliable electricity.

Opportunity Uganda is now offering clients like Betty Aute (pictured right), a papyrus weaver and mother of two, a solar panel loan of about $300, which covers panels and installation and is repayable over two years, to bring light to their family homes. The implications are life-changing and endless–when it becomes dark at night, so many productive activities must come to an end. Children can’t do important activities like homework. For these families, evening turns into a discouraging time because there is so much yet to accomplish. The energy the panels have absorbed from the sun throughout the day can be used so that families working their way out of poverty can make the most of their day.

However, light coming into the villages is not only productive but it adds to the sense of hope and encouragement. This helps families in Uganda to feel whole and to have their needs met.

1. Steven Levy
   Senior writer at Wired; Author of In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
   Steven Levy: “The most prominent leaders in the technology world today believe that the first step in doing the impossible is freeing yourself from the constraint that something can’t be done. What if we thought of ending poverty in that way? When I wrote In the Plex, I really saw how technology has the power to change the world. [...] The thing I learned from Google is take on big, hairy, audacious goals.”
2. Kevin Compton
   Co-founder of Radar Partners; Co-chair of the Banking on Africa Campaign Executive Task Force
   Kevin Compton: “Astounding technological innovations that have impacted the world were the calculator[...], the personal computer[...] and Facebook[...]. But the innovation that changed me forever is the Trust Group. The Trust Group has more accounting than a calculator, more productivity than a personal computer, more communication than a fiber optics link, more relevant information than the Web, and more socialization than social media. [...To reach our goal to end poverty in Africa] it will be more than technical innovation, it will be the Trust Group.”
3. Aleksandr-Alain Kalanda
   CEO of Opportunity International Malawi; Conceptualized and rolled out Opportunity Malawi’s innovative mobile branch services
   Aleksandr-Alain Kalanda: “Our research revealed a lot of reasons why [people in poverty] were not using banks, such as expensive identity documentation, cumbersome processes, high fees, products which did not make sense, branches which are very far from where people live and work, and so on. Our [technological] solutions to these problems have made [Opportunity Malawi] an innovative and ‘pro-poor’ bank. [...] In the next two years, we hope to be serving one million clients.”

Highlights from Geoff Thige

Geoffrey Thige, COO of Opportunity Kenya, speaks from the mainstage about the work of Opportunity Kenya and what the future holds for Kenyan clients..

In Kenya, we have 39 million people, yet only 4 million people have bank accounts. There would need to be 500,000 jobs created to accommdate all the young people, yet the informal sector only produces 10,000 jobs. And most of the job training is for white collar jobs, which do not exist. So you can imagine there is a lot of joblessness.

At Opportunity, we are working to implement financial services, including savings, and especially financial training. I’ll tell you a story. A few weeks before I left Kenya, we had a financial literacy training session and a woman named Francisca was there and she was asking a lot of questions. So I engaged her and asked about her story. She had been selling tomatoes, but her business was failiing so she came to the training to find out why. There was a lot of competition in the marketplace. Her customer service was not good. Her prices had stayed the same so her margins continued to shrink. And as I was talking to her, I realized we could help her and clients like her find the solutions to creating sustainable solutions and grow their businesses. When Francisca left, she knew how to build her business, and protect against competition. She was hopeful and excited about the future of her business.

We also sell insurance for natural disasters like floods and fire, such as the recent petrol fire that ravaged the Nairobi slums. The solution to poverty is insurance, as Richard Leftley shared today in a conference breakout session. However, this is necessary to protect against the effects of not only natural disasters, but also political crises, such as the post-election riots in 2008. At that time, we lost 80% of our client portfolio. But our clients who were displaced by the political violence came back, and with our help, many have been able to grow their businesses back to their previous levels.

Seventy-five percent of the population in Kenya are under 25. We have to be able to educate them. All the schools that Opportunity Kenya funds are in the slums. Many of the students have HIV/AIDS. We also fund school fee loans so that parents can afford to send their children to school.

In Kenya, cell phones are not a luxury item, they are a crucial part of the infrastructure and daily life. Clients can transfer loan repayments and pay their bills via cell phones. This is not just a convenience, but a critical way for clients to save the time and money of visiting a physical bank. It’s also much less risky and it can also be a way for clients to save, although that not the intended use of the service. This is a great opportunity for them.

What’s next for Opportunity Kenya? In the next two years, Kenya intends to be a regulated, deposit-taking financial institution to allow clients a place to save and offer them access to formal banking services.

We are revolutionizing the way that clients are able to support their families and their communities. I wish to thank Opportunity’s Kenya Champion Team and the supporters that make the Banking on Africa initiative possible. Together, we will be able to give all Kenyans the chance at a better life. Thank you.

A bit about Geoff Thige

Geoffrey Thige is Opportunity Kenya’s COO, a role in which he oversees transformation, IT, risk/compliance and special projects. Prior to joining Opportunity, Geoffrey worked at Microenterprise Development Services Ltd, a Kenyan microfinance company where he was the finance manager as well as head of human resources and administration. He has over 15 years experience in the financial accounting, microfinance and entrepreneurship sectors working for PRIDE Africa (an international NGO) and most recently with Sunlink Microenterprise Development Services Ltd. Geoffrey holds a B.A. in economics and government from the University of Nairobi with a CPA and ACCA qualifications, and an MBA in finance. Prior to his recent promotion at Opportunity, Geoffrey served as transformation and impact manager.

Harry Turner, the panel facilitator and CEO of Opportunity’s Global Microfinance Operations, then got the conversation going by asking the panelist to talk about the technologies that are being used in the field.

Skoog talked about recent efforts to bring down the cost of Smart Cards that are being used by OI across the globe. Currently, smart cards cost about $9.50 dlls. a piece. Such a high price is placing great limitations to increasing the client base. Daryl talked about current efforts to make these “Fake” Smart Cards into really smart ones by bringing down the cost to $.5 dlls. a piece.

Geoffrey Thige, COO of Opportunity Kenya, gave an overview of how cell phone technology is being used in Kenya. According to Geoffrey, a cell phone in Kenya is no longer a sign of status. “Everybody needs a cell phone.” And cell phones are now being used for banking every day. There is a large population still living in rural areas that rely on money transfers from urban areas. At Opportunity, they have been working to enable people make safe transactions from urban to rural areas using cell phones. “People at the bottom of the pyramid are now able to make transfers and get payments.” With only a secret code and an official ID, people in Kenya are now able to use their cell phones to get payments and manage their savings.

Richard Leftley, president and CEO of MicroEnsure, then talked about recent efforts to embed simple life insurance products into the cell phone plans of telecommunication carriers in Africa. This model has been very successful in helping telecom companies increase customer loyalty while OI clients have been able to get access to free insurance. “The more air time, the more free insurance.” In that way OI has been able to expand dramatically its customer base. Customers who never had access to life insurance before get to experience the benefits of being insured. Then it is easier to charge for better insurance service or for adding family members to their insurance plans.

Turner then asked the panelist to talk about innovations in the agriculture space. Daryl Skoog talked about the use of cell phones to gather data from interactions between clients and loan officers to get a sense of the kind of agricultural products that are being grown.

Leftley talked about the use of iPods to replace paper in enrollment operations. “iPods might look expensive but works much more cheaply than paper.” Using the case of a coffee cooperative in Tanzania, he talked about how paper is very costly due to illiteracy and the cost of storing, transferring, and managing paper applications. Using a weather-proof iPod touch they are able to capture and send information from clients, take fingerprints and pictures, much faster and cheaper than with paper applications.

Robert Westcott, CIO of Global Microfinance Operations, concluded the interventions from the panelists by talking about the potential of cloud computing. Currently, managing technology places a huge burden on management teams. Current computer systems rely a lot on IT teams, with very high costs on time, money, and energy. Through cloud-based software solutions they have been able to drive down the cost. However, Robert recognized, the weakness of the IT infrastructure in some developing countries will be a barrier in adopting cloud-based technologies.

This post was written by Emilio Martinez de Velasco Aguirre. Emilio is a PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley specializing in innovation and regional economic development. His research explores new initiatives to promote global innovation processes. As a consultant, Emilio has assisted various non-profit organizations developing strategies to create value for Latin America by linking local talent, knowledge and technology with actors and organizations in Silicon Valley.

Here are the highlights:

Breakout session panel for 'From Silicon Valley to Sub-Saharan Africa'

Steven Levy, senior writer of Wired magazine and author of “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives,” talked about the importance of getting into the mindset of people in the developing world. This is important not only to come up with innovations for the developing world, but also to turn insights from the developing world into innovations for the rest of the world. He exemplified this idea by sharing an experience from a trip to Africa, where he and a group of Googlers had a cultural clash when interacting with a group of computer science majors. They had an eye-opening moment when they realized that mobile phones were not going to be used in the same way than they were being used in the developed world. Given the illiteracy rates in Africa, the use of voice in mobile phones has a lot of potential. “Getting to the core of how humans interact with technology will give an edge to technologies in other environments,” Steven said, “as it will make them much more intuitive.”

For Bill Draper, general partner at Draper Richards LP, and author of “The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership Between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs,” we need to think of ideas that matter a lot around the world. Twitter, for instance, has had a great impact across both the developed and the developing world. And he encouraged the audience to think of innovation in a broader sense. Many organizational innovations, even when they might not involve a lot of technology, can have a great impact. As an example, he talked about a recent effort to bring better health services across Africa by providing medicines and other health supplies to Avon ladies, who are already visiting houses door-to-door.

Ben Chelf, co-founder and chief technology officer of Coverity, emphasized that innovations result from socioeconomic conditions, the larger socioeconomic infrastructure, as much as from the technology itself. For instance, in the developed world we take ATMs for granted. But in Africa where an ATM infrastructure doesn’t exist, a big challenge is how to make payments. The specific socioeconomic conditions create many opportunities for innovation.

For Aleksandr-Alain Kalanda, CEO of Opportunity Malawi, the biggest question is how to solve the problems of lower-income people in a sustainable way. They have addressed that question by thinking of ways to leverage the technology around them. For instance, they have been looking at how simple and inexpensive cell phones can be used to make bank transactions. “People in Africa don’t have access to computers or smart phones.” So they developed a framework that uses basic and affordable cell phones to enable cell phone banking, in partnerships with software developing companies and other strategic partners. They were the first ones to deliver that platform, and now other organizations are using it.

Aleksandr talked about another case, the use of points of sale for banking. They have been looking at shops that have a point of sale as an outlet for bank transactions. His team has been in conversations with central banks and adapting points of sales at shops to enable customers make the same transactions at a point of sale than they would do in an ATM.

Rob Meloche then asked the panel to reflect on one of Steve Jobs’ greatest teachings: making technology really simple to use.

Bill Draper then turned to what he considers the heartbeat for development: education. “If we don’t work on that problem in the developing world, we are just forgetting about the real essence of development,” Bill said. One innovative idea that hasn’t developed too well is using the Internet to extend the arm of great educators, the ability for someone in Malawi or Rwanda to listen to a great professor at Harvard, Stanford, Oxford or any great University.

Steven Levy talked about an idea introduced by Steve Jobs: not releasing a technology until it was ready to be used, until the infrastructure and the mindset were in place. According to Steven Levy, Steve Jobs showed us “how to make the impossible from a realistic base,” understanding what our situation is at a given moment, and moving forward from there.

Ben Chelf then talked about the importance of critical thinking. Based on his experience traveling in Rwanda, he talked about the importance of not just solving specific technologies, but addressing problems at a more larger, strategic level. “We need to educate on critical thinking skills to solve problems.”

Rob Meloche then asked the panel to reflect on a related topic: How to create a culture of sharing and collaboration on banking.

Bill Draper talked about the importance of person-to-person communication. “Internet communication, tweeting, is not the whole answer.” He reminded us that in Africa much communication takes place in coffee shops, a great place for sharing ideas and do networking. Aleksandr built on Bill’s comment by talking about the importance of networking. “It is important to find the right person to get something done.”

Steven Levy took a more cautious stance on networking and sharing. While he agreed that there are a lot of places in the developing world where people get to communicate and can foster collaboration, the culture of entrepreneurship might be missing. He talked about an experience in Bagdad where he and a group of entrepreneurs were invited to discuss ideas from the business side on how to foster collaboration. Interacting with the top-students in Bagdad he was shocked to find out that all they wanted to do when finishing school was to get a good job in the government. Steven Levy pointed that an entrepreneurial infrastructure needs to go together with education to enable people realize their projects.

The conversation then moved to the topic of the entrepreneurial spirit. Can entrepreneurship be taught? The session concluded with a lively discussion on this and other questions posed by the audience.

This post was written by Emilio Martinez de Velasco Aguirre. Emilio is a PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley specializing in innovation and regional economic development. His research explores new initiatives to promote global innovation processes. As a consultant, Emilio has assisted various non-profit organizations developing strategies to create value for Latin America by linking local talent, knowledge and technology with actors and organizations in Silicon Valley.

Presentation by John Magnay

There are one billion people in Africa, 75% of whom are involved in agriculture, yet the continent is not capable of feeding 100% of the people.

It’s most important that we finance production because that’s where we can most impact hunger in Africa.

The Rural Model

Input microfinance services such as loans, savings and insurance; infrastructure services such as communications, power, roads and water; and market information systems.

Analysis of Farmers for Agricultural Finance Services

We’ve developed an informed lending system that involves mapping of their land, crops profile and household profile. We do in-house analysis of cost of production. We also profile our clients with household demographics to find out how much labor they can access, and the accurate size of their farm with measuring and GPS mapping.

Farmers may be as much as 50 km. away from their farmer’s group, simply because that was the only way they could access finance. So we offer them a way to access financial services much closer to their farm.

Our loan officers enter farmers’ data with mobile phones when they visit them. And when they visit farmer’s groups, they use it to note who isn’t attending meetings, because those are the farmers they need to be concerned about, and need to set up an immediate meeting with them.

When we gather enough data, we will know exactly how much land and labor clients have. Then we will be able to offer either loans or suggest that farmers rent out their land, depending on the data we’ve gathered.

Short-selling Crops

When farmers cannot pay their bills, they may resort to short-selling their crops. Then the lenders will come and strip their crops, literally, off the plants, and they will have no harvest to sell. These informal financial services can be devastating for farmers.

We offer a combination of extension services with financial tools. We offer best farming practices, including good planting processes, fertilizers, and watering, as well as agricultural loans tailored with the data and client profiles gathered, as mentioned above.

Ideal Lending

1. Well organized farmers in a group who are receiving training and extension services
2. GIS mapped and household profiles
3. Access to input and output market
4. Household safety nets with weather index insurance and credit insurance
5. Strategic partnerships to support the work

A bit about John Magnay

John Magnay, Opportunity’s senior agricultural advisor, Africa, has lived and worked in Uganda since 1977. A graduate of agricultural management from Wye College, University of London, he went to Uganda on a Ugandan government project to rebuild dairy farms and industry. After the fall of Idi Amin in 1979, he remained in Uganda starting his own business in the private sector, firstly supporting the agricultural sector with inputs and processing equipment and since the mid ‘80s buying produce for sale to relief agencies and regional trade. In 2001, he was the founder and chairman of Uganda Grain Traders Ltd, a consortium of 16 grain traders that exported the Uganda surplus maize to Zambia. In 2008, he retired from his commercial businesses and began working with Opportunity International, developing smallholder rural finance in Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi and Mozambique.

Highlights from Steven Levy’s presentation

Steven Levy is senior writer at Wired magazine and the author of "In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives."

A few years ago I wrote a story about computer hackers and expected a disheveled group of people. But what I found was a group of people committed to changing the world through technology. The experience really changed and galvanized me.

One thing that hackers believed is that information should be free. No one owned it, it belonged to the community. The people who designed the internet also built the internet based on the free flow of information. The lessons we have from the hackers is do the impossible and share the information as much as possible.

Now I want to talk about Google. Sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” When I went to visit Google headquarters in 1999, I felt Google was a little magical. Larry Page and Sergey Brin built the world wide web and Google at Stanford, and changed the way we search.

When I wrote In the Plex, I really saw how technology has the power to change the world. I was traveling to India with Google employees tasked with creating Gmail. We saw that the villagers had access to mobile phones and they had four bars, great reception, I don’t even have four bars in Times Square! And now Google has embarked on creating mobile phones. So the thing I learned from Google is take on big, hairy, audacious goals.

Finally, I want to talk about Steve Jobs, who I was lucky enough to interview. I want to read something he said to me in an interview years ago [Steven reads from his iPad]:

Fruit. An Apple is the ultimate simplicity… When you get into a problem and find all these complexities, that’s where most people give up. The truly great person will keep going and come full circle to find solutions to the problem.

Twenty years later when I read that quote back to Steven he said yes, that’s what Apple still does. Technology truly solves problems and changes lives. Thank you.

A bit about Steven Levy

Steven Levy is a senior writer for Wired, the former chief technology correspondent for Newsweek and the author of seven books. Washington Post describes him as “American’s premier technology journalist … a Silicon Valley insider who writes for the rest of us on the outside.” His most recent book, In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives, has been a New York Times bestseller and is heralded as the definitive word on the search giant. His first book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, was named by the readers of PC Magazine as the best sci-tech book of 20 years and was recently updated for a 25th anniversary edition. A longtime expert on Apple, Levy has written the history of the Macintosh, Insanely Great, and The Perfect Thing, about the iPod. Other books include Crypto, Artificial Life, and The Unicorn’s Secret.

This session was streamed live at opportunity.org/live. Visit opportunity.org/live throughout the conference to watch the sessions live.