This summer you'll have the ability to change lives - three billion of them - one line of code at a time. The Community for Open Source Microfinance (COSM) and it's Mifos X project will be participating in Google Summer of Code for the third time. Mifos X is an open source technology platform for enabling financial inclusion to the poor. Google Summer of Code is a global program sponsored by Google that offers students stipends to write code for open source projects.  Students accepted to the program will spend their summers coding from June 17 to September 23rd and upon successful evaluation receive a $5000 stipend provided by Google. For full details on GSoC, read the FAQ and browse the program timeline - student applications open April 22! You can apply from our organization page.

One of the hallmarks of the current Mifos product is its simple and familiar browser-based user interface. As we launch our new Mifos X platform, we want to retain the essence of this user-friendly UI while injecting a modern refresh into the design of the platform.  As a platform, we aim to have one consistent user experience with products and applications that are as usable and accessible to our global community as Mifos has been.

Please join us once again in our regular bi-weekly user meetup, this Thursday, July 19. We have a very interesting presentation in store. Miguel Joía Santos from the Iniciativa Mifos Mozambique will be sharing his experiences leading deployments in both Mozambique and Namibia. For our demonstration portion of the meeting, we'll have a look at the simplicity and flexibility available through our CloudFoundry integration.

The meeting is at the usual time at 330pm GMT on Thursday, July 19 - we'll connect directly via Skype or Freeconferencing if the service is available.  Here's an invite you can add to your calendar. 

The agenda for the meeting thus far:

• Presentation on Implementations in Namibia and Mozambique
• CloudFoundry Demonstration
• Mifos X and Samiha J update
• Social Performance Management discussion (PPI/Question Groups)
• Open Office Hours Discussion

Since our last meetup, here's a few posts to the blog on what's been happening in the community
 

Please join us once again in our regular bi-weekly user meetup, this Thursday, July 5. We had a change in scheduled presenters so will have a participatory discussion regarding accounting. For our demonstration portion of the meeting, we'll look at forums, mailing lists, IRC, Q/A exchanges, and discuss what's best to help you all stay connected and collaborate.

Thank you to Milagros for the presentation she gave during our last meeting - if you missed out, please take a moment to review her slides or read the blog post that we've linked to down below.  

The meeting is at the usual time at 330pm GMT on Thursday, July 5 - we'll connect directly via Skype or Freeconferencing if the service is available.  Here's an invite you can add to your calendar. 

The agenda for the meeting thus far:

• Participatory discussion on accounting and what your org is currently doing (Change from scheduled presenter)
• Demonstration and Discussion of Support/Collaboration Tools
• Update on Mifos 2.4.1 and Marie J Release
• Discussion on Question Groups
• Open Office Hours

Since our last meetup, here's a few posts to the blog on what's been happening in the community
 

Two weeks have come and gone and it's time to all get together once again. Our bi-weekly user meetup is coming up this Thursday, June 21.  Milagros Mendoza of Quipu Technology will be sharing her experiences rolling out Mifos at Fundación Inversión y Cooperación, the first MFI to go live on Mifos in Latin America.  We'll also discuss the Mifos 2.4 release and we'll have a brief demonstration of CloudFoundry integration with Mifos. 

The meeting is at the usual time at 330pm GMT on Thursday, June 21 - we'll connect directly via Skype or Freeconferencing if the service is available.  Please add this invite to your calendar to join. 

The agenda for the meeting thus far:

• Presentation from Milagros from Quipu Technology
• Demonstration of CloudFoundry Integration
• Discussion of Mifos 2.4 release
• Discussion of upcoming Marie J release.
• Open Office Hours

Since our last meetup, here's a few posts to the blog on what's been happening in the community
 

Notes from our meetup have been posted to the wiki.  Please take a look at the slides that Lassad presented on the Mifos experience at enda.

It's that time again. We've got our bi-weekly user meetup coming up this Thursday, June 7.  Lassaad from enda in Tunisia will be sharing his experiences and we'll demonstrate some of the features that are coming up in Vinolia I.  Thanks to Lukasz for the demonstration of the Android app that he gave last week.

The meeting is at the usual time at 330pm GMT on Thursday, June 7 - we'll connect directly via Skype or Freeconferencing if the service is available.  Here's an invite you can add to your calendar. 

The agenda for the meeting thus far:

• Presentation from Lassaad from enda in Tunisia
• Demonstration of upcoming features from Vinolia I
• Discussion of admin docs and receipt functionality.
• Open Office Hours

The Vinolia I features we'll be showing off are the embedded Pentaho reports, ability to transfer funds between savings and loan accounts, enhancements to GLIM, and support for principal pre-payments. 

Thanks again to those who attended our last User Meetup on May 10. Thomas from Vastech Uganda shared his experiences supporting Mifos users and Keith Woodlock gave a thorough demo of individual lending functionalities in Mifos X.  The demo stirred up some good questions and initial feedback on Mifos X is very promising. Notes from the meeting have been added to the wiki. If you'd like to learn more about current capabilities in Mifos X, check out the video demonstration.

Thanks again to those who attended our last User Meetup on April 26. We had good attendance as we watched the demonstration of the Mifos-ACC accounting module from Hugo Technologies, FinA, and Conflux. Notes from the meeting have been added to the wiki and if you'd like to see how Mifos-ACC works, check out the video demonstration. 

Update: We had a great turnout for our April 26 user meetup - a dozen people turned out to catch the demo of the Mifos-ACC accounting module led by Shiva from Hugo Technologies.  We had several new meetup participants from our Africa community so happy to see you there and look forward to you attending again in the future. Notes from the meeting have been added to the wiki and if you'd like to see how Mifos-ACC works, check out the video demonstration. 

Thank again to those who attend our last User Meetup on April 12. George Lteif from Al Majmoua shared a nice presentation that helped to connect the community over similar challenges being faced. Here's a link to George's presentation and the notes from the meeting if you weren't able to attend. 

Help us keep up the momentum from our last user meetup where we had more than a dozen in attendance and 4 continents represented.  We'll be having another community-wide user meetup on Thursday Apr 12 3:30pm GMT and would like to get as many users to attend once again. Please add this invite to your calendar.