Mifos Initiative Launches Mifos X Platform

June 11, 2014 – San Francisco, CA

Mifos Initiative Launches Mifos X Platform for Financial Inclusion : Free and Open Source Software for Financial Institutions Bringing Financial Services to the Poor in Developing Countries.

Mifos X was officially launched at a hugely successful event in San Francisco. Over 100 people from the tech industry  and non-profits attended the launch event. The event was graciously hosted by Paul Maritz, our chairman, at the Pivotal Labs in downtown San Francisco (Paul is CEO of Pivotal).

Paul opened the event with exciting remarks about the power of platforms and how Mifos X has been completely rebuilt as a open platform that brings together providers of capital with the poor that can use that capital to lift themselves out of poverty. Paul forecast that as an open platform that encourages innovation in financial services for the poor, Mifos X will be a global force in financial inclusion. Paul sees the next five years as being instrumental for Mifos.

 

We were overwhelmed with the response to our invitation. Over 100 people attended the event – far more than we expected. Fortunately, we had seven Mifos board members and staffers there: Paul Maritz and James Dailey from the board, and Ed Cable, Craig Chelius, Vishwas Babu, Steve Thomson and our summer intern, Ollie Janders.

   

Ed Cable gave a moving presentation of the mission of Mifos, “Creating a World of 3 Billion Maries“, starting the story with the very first, and very real Marie:

We told the story of our initiative from the perspective of our community itself – from the millions of other Maries we reach through our pioneering customers like Nuru International and the partners that support them like Musoni and Conflux Technologies on down to the committed volunteers like Deanna McCusker who we connect with through Social Coding 4 Good. e were delighted to have three Mifos partners attend in support: Social Coding 4 Good, Tech Soup, and Corent.

 

 

The networking was furious! The response tremendous! And Ed, Steve, and I are very busy following up with potential partners, advisors, and volunteers.

   

The launch was a great event. Thanks everyone for hosting, donating (we sold 16 t-shirts for $20 a piece), and attending the event.

Continuing the Momentum

This launch is just the beginning of our presence in the Silicon Valley. Please join us for the following:

 

Thank You’s:

We couldn’t have pulled off this event without the enormous support of the volunteers, supporters, and partners across our community:

• Hosting: Thank you to all of Pivotal – Paul Maritz for hosting, Jane Micheli for coordinating everyone, and Rob Mee of Pivotal Labs for offering up the great venue and committed staff like Michael McGinley who made sure we had everything we needed for the event.
• Storytelling: Thanks to Deanna and Celine from Social Coding 4 Good for telling their stories in person and to Nuru International and Musoni for sharing videos for the event. Shout-outs to Corent and TechSoup Global for hosting booths as well.
• Event logistics: Thank you to our rock-star welcoming and setup crew – Ollie, Shruthi, Steve, and Cindy for coordinating a smooth event and all the t-shirt sales.
• Event Promotion: To Ryan for promoting the event to so many Do-Gooders in the Valley including the SF Tech4Good Meetup Group led by Regina Walton.
• Chapter Leadership:  To Caleb for taking leadership of our local Mifos chapter and passionately recruiting all the chapter sign-ups during the event.
• Photography: Our gratitude to Mitchell Shapiro for the beautiful photos he took capturing our event.

 

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