Edward Cable

Results of the First Mifos Summit Hackathon

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If you haven’t seen it, check out the blog of Michael Vorburger for a recap of the day-long hackathon, he and Markus Geiss facilitated at the tail-end of our Global Summit back in March. Decked out in their new Mifos hoodies, our coding Ninjas led a productive day of development on the platform, the community app, and our Android app. They hacked out some solutions to needs that came up during the summit and were able to train and bring up to speed some of the newest developers within the Mifos community.

 

 

Edward Cable

Financial Inclusion Newsflash – April

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A roundup of some of the notable news in the financial inclusion, fin-tech, mobile money, and open source circles:

Making Progress Towards 3 Billion Maries

World Bank has released the results of the latest Global Findex data and progress is being made. The Center for Financial Inclusion has nicely recapped the report on their blog: The number of unbanked individuals has dropped from 2.5 billion to 2 billion as account penetration increased by about 20 percent or 700 million adults, bringing the world’s banked rate from 51 to 62 percent. India and China account for most of this jump in financial inclusion but 43% of “banked” Indians hadn’t made a deposit or withdrawal in the past twelve months.

The data also confirms the growth and penetration of mobile money in sub-Saharan Africa where 12% of adults (versus 2 percent globally) have a mobile money account. 45% of these mobile money account holders rely on it alone for formal banking which is promising for the potential of digital financial inclusion in other regions. We are delighted to see the overall growth in universal access and optimistic that adoption and true inclusion will be brought about through the transition to digital financial inclusion. We are eager for the Mifos X platform to be a part of that shift by serving as a common technology foundation for others to innovate from.

You can read the full report at The Global Findex Database 2014: Measuring Financial Inclusion Around the World and also download the data itself to analyze and visualize it.

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Dayna Harp

Star Contributor of the Month – Ishan Khanna

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Meet Our Star Contributor for March 2015 – Ishan Khanna

Ishan entered The Mifos Community as a Google Summer of Code 2014 participant where he grabbed hold of Android Client and built out the native Android field operations app for Mifos X users. Over the course of last summer, Ishan took the community from no mobile app to full functionality. His work can be seen in the Mifos Android Client User Guide.

IK SummitIshan didn’t stop there. He has been active in the Community ever since – even though he has a full-time job with SeekSherpa. He has contributed major bug fixes and engaged others in the community. During the 2015 Summit, he made contributions to several partners including FINA in Georgia to help get their remote app to full functionality. Tengiz Merabishvili from FINA says, “Ishan helped us a bunch, he is a great developer. He is very energetic and knowledgeable. He is a hard worker and once he sets his mind to do something, he always gets it done. I enjoyed our brief time working together, and learned a lot.”

In Ishan’s own words, “I am an insatiable geek, striving for perfection in software.  I love giving Tech Talks and motivating people about FOSS Development.” He has two and one-half years Android Platform experience. He has a gained good grip on Java, Android SDK, Git, Gradle and other related technologies in this period.

Q.  On what projects are you currently working?

A.  I’m working on an app that will allow travellers to connect with locals and change the way travellers see a city these days. TL;DR – Disrupting the Conventional Travel Experience.

 Q.   What is most rewarding about working with the Mifos Community?

A.  The opportunity to meet, work with and learn from people in Global Mifos Summit, having experience in the industry more than my total living age. And to represent Mifos Initiative at Google Summer of Code Reunion in San Jose, California in October, 2014.

 Q.  How do you play when you aren’t working?

India Love in DubaiA.  When I am not working I am usually digging into new frameworks, languages and tech blogs. Find food across the world through YouTube. Or watching “The Big Bang Theory”.

Perhaps painting his face in support of India while in Dubai slipped his mind. . .

Thanks Ishan for your contributions and your joyful spirit!