Recapping Random Hacks of Kindness
Two days. Three continents. Twenty volunteers. One mission – 3 Billion Maries.

Two days. Three continents. Twenty volunteers. One mission – 3 Billion Maries.
I am totally psyched to be headed to San Francisco this weekend to experience Random Hacks of Kindness for the first time. We are ready to RHoK out with Mifos as one of the featured problems for December 2012. The sheer enormity of this global collaboration puts me in awe – i really don’t know what to expect but am excited to lead our project and am sure great things are on the way.
This past month, we concluded our first-ever global gathering of the Mifos community at our 2012 Mifos Summit in Bangalore, India. It was a huge success with 42 people in attendance from a dozen countries including 11 Specialists, 20 microfinance practitioners, and 11 contributors and strategic partners. I was thrilled to meet community members new and old for the first time and to finally put faces to all the names/voices behind the Skype calls. I was proud to see all the interactions and camaraderie that was shared throughout the grounds of the venue in Bangalore.
First off we want to graciously thank Paul Maritz for proposing and funding the summit; without him none of it would have been possible. A big thank you as well to Cat Allman and Google’s Open Source Programs office who pitched in last minute support to allow us to offer travel scholarships to several more individuals flying in from Africa. Please also extend your gratitude to Suresh, Arun, Praveen, and Rao from Grameen Koota for hosting the summit and conducting site visits along with Nirantara. Finally, a huge thank you to Vishwas, Nayan, and Ashok from Conflux Technologies who went out of their way to ensure smooth logistics and coordinate activities on the ground in Bangalore.
We like to focus in on our Specialists every once a while, recognizing their contributions and providing a more personal glimpse into their organization and team. This time around we’re taking a closer look at SolDevelo. SolDevelo has been playing a crucial role as the technical stewards of the Mifos 2.0 codebase. Head over to the COSM blog to read about each member of the team and what their plans are for Mifos in 2013 including continued expansion of their hosted service, MifCloud.
This regular blog series will shine the light on some of our top Specialists. Not only do we want to recognize them for their accomplishments, we want others to learn from the approach they’ve taken to promote and implement Mifos.
Mifos Specialists are one of the most crucial links in our community – they are the driving force that is promoting and supporting Mifos worldwide. Aside from championing our product and bringing the Mifos technology to new markets, they act as the fundamental bridge feeding in MFI requirements to be developed by the community. Specialists don’t stop there as many are also developing and localizing the product to fit their local market. For all these reasons, COSM is focusing it energy on making these Specialists successful – they are the primary channel to market, the eyes and ears on the ground, and the entrepreneurial force that will help us sustainably scale.
From the onset, a fundamental part of our product vision for Mifos X has been to be a flexible platform agnostic of any one microfinance methodology. During the Mifos Summit (more takeaways to come in a future post), a key finding that emerged was the centrality of the relationship with the client in both the data model and the platform architecture. Regardless of whatever methodology supported, relationships can be defined between the client and whatever account, entity, or structure you would like.
Gripped by a comment made by Rupal Patel on the importance of client data during our Setting the Mifos X vision, Craig came up with a quick sketch that is a good first pass at our vision for Mifos X. Client Data is at the center and the various flows of money or information that are coming in and out of the platform are clearly visualized.
This past week there was a virtual conference led by CGAP and Microsave on Client Insights as well as blog post from Ignacio Mas on remixing microfinance. Both these topics on focusin on client data and looking at way to create hybrid models of delivering financial services were a good follow-on to our vision session at the Mifos Summit. It got me reflecting on our product vision that was beginning to emerge at the summit. Technology often constrains what an MFI should do rather than enable it. We aim to make Mifos X a flexible platform that puts no limits on how an MFI can design and deliver their financial services.
To learn more about product vision, read the full blog post.
This last major release is code-named Esha K in recognition of Esha Omar Athman, a borrower at Fursa Leo in Mombasa, Kenya. Esha has been a client at Fursa Leo since July 26, 2011. In that time, she has taken out 3 business loans and has significantly expanded her business enabling her to uplift the living standards of her family through a new home, better meal, and sending her son to school.
Esha came to Fursa Leo, eight months pregnant seeking start-up capital for her failing ice cube business while her husband struggled to help them pay their bill and provide for their family. Through Fursa Leo’s mandatory financial literacy program and graduation through three larger loan cycles, Esha has brought her humble ice cube business from failure to prosperity.
Development is underway on the final major functional release on the Mifos 2.0 codebase. Since this will be the last feature development before before we transition development over to Mifos X, we wanted this to be a big release that closes many existing gaps. This is definitely the case as we’re tackling a number of areas across the product.
Once again a special thank you to Jakub Slawínski, Lukasz Chudy and the entire SolDevelo team for developing and proceeding over Samiha J. Mifos 2.5 is another big release that brings a strong mix of functional improvements, technical enhancements, tools for getting data into Mifos, and integrations with other systems. Continuing with our 2012 goal of making Mifos 2.0 a functionally complete group lending MIS before we transition development over to Mifos X, Mifos 2.5 smooths out some of the core areas of the product and fills some of the major outstanding gaps.
View the release notes for a full list of all issues resolved.