Muciojad

GSOC Mentor Summit 2010

/in /by

For the second year, Adam Monsen and I attended the Google Summer of Code 2010 Mentor Summit. This year’s summit was held on October 23 and 24, at Google Headquarters.

We knew more what to expect this year, and maybe that’s why I felt I even got more out of this year’s meetings. Last year, I kind of stood back and attended a few of the sessions I was interested in. This year, in addition to attending some cool sessions, I hosted two sessions:  “GSOC in Africa” (http://openetherpad.org/gsoc-in-africa), and “Audio and Video for Distributed Teams” (http://openetherpad.org/AudioVideoDistributedTeams) .

Read more

Gleb

Star Contributor of the Month – Stanley Kwok

/in /by

For the month of September, we’re showcasing Stanley Kwok, a volunteer who’s stepped into the role of i18n (Internationalization) champion for Mifos as we migrate our UI to FTL pages. 

Stanley Kwok - Vancouver

Each month we honor one of our top volunteer contributors from around the world.  Stanley recently joined our community in June but has made a big impact in that short time. Since joining, he’s fixed a number of bugs related to the Mifos User Interface, reviewed incoming patches from community members, and gained active commit privileges to the Mifos source code.  Recently he’s become our Internationalization (i18n) Champion, stepping up to lead efforts translating Mifos through translatewiki.net as we migrate to a new UI framework on FreeMarker.

 

Read more

Muciojad

Summer of Code 2010 – A Journey Well-Traveled

/in /by

In this post, we want to take the opportunity to thank our 2010 Google Summer of Code interns for dedicating their summers to helping end poverty.

2010_300x267px When summer comes around, the Mifos team looks forward to an energetic group of Google Summer of Code interns who are ready to dive into our project and help us push towards our vision of 3 Billion Maries.

This summer was no different as we had five interns hard at work, helping us transition the Mifos platform to its next generation architecture. From the back-end to the front-end, the contributions of our interns will bring forth a more robust product to our customers and a platform that is much quicker, lightweight, and easier for our contributors to build on.

Read more

Gleb

Star Contributor of the Month – Gayl Kennedy

/in /by

For the month of August, we’re showcasing Gayl Kennedy who while leading the deployment of Mifos at Fantsuam Foundation in Nigeria, has provided a critical and discerning voice to help us improve the Mifos product.

Gayl Kennedy - Ireland/Nigeria

Each month we honor one of our top volunteer contributors from around the world.  Gayl is our first member of the Mifos implementer community to be recognized as our Star Contributor of the Month.  Since joining our community, she’s been an active participant on the mailing lists, helping to locate bugs and identify design and usability improvements through new feature requests. 

Read more

Gleb

Star Contributor of the Month – Jim Stamper

/in /by

For the month of July, we’re showcasing Jim Stamper who’s lent his Drupal expertise to help improve the Mifos web presence.

Jim Stamper - Seattle, WA

Each month we honor one of our top volunteer contributors from around the world.  Jim is not our typical contributor, working directly on the Mifos codebase.  He’s been flexing his Drupal and PHP muscle to help us get a solid working community infrastructure in place by project managing the redesign of the Mifos.org community site on Drupal.   

Read more

Muciojad

Adam Feuer Interviewed by PayPal X Developer Network

/in /by

Mifos Director of Engineering, Adam Feuer discusses our goal to end poverty, and software’s place in achieving that goal.

20100809_article.mifos_.interview.photo_.Adam-FeuerRecently, Adam Feuer, had the chance to sit down with Matthew Russell of the PayPal X Developer Network for a casual conversation discussing Mifos and how developers around the world can work towards ending poverty by contributing to our software.

Visit the PayPal X site for an edited transcript of the interview or listen to the full conversation in this .mp3 file.

Adam covers a wide range of topics including:

Read more

Muciojad

Uncovering the DNA of a Great Team

/in /by

Mifos & ThoughtWorks teams discover the keys to successful global collaboration.

bootcamp_art_2Recently the Tech for Microfinance team has been going through the McCarthy Bootcamp, a teamwork laboratory, to help bring our team into alignment and closer to greatness. BootCamp is transforming us into a high-performance team, fully aligned around a shared vision so we can ship a great Mifos product faster to our customers.

Thus far, our team has completed two BootCamps; one with our US-based staff and then a second follow-on BootCamp with our software engineers and professional services staff from around the world. This past May we held our 3rd BootCamp with the newest member of the team Joe McNulty, and four participants from our newest strategic technology partner, ThoughtWorks. Bringing together the ThoughtWorks team from Bangalore with our Seattle staff we aimed to form a strong team that would eliminate the time zone and geographical distances. The following is a highlight of their achievements throughout their 3 day BootCamp:

Read more

Gleb

Star Contributor of the Month for June – Keith Woodlock

/in /by

Keith WoodlockFor the month of June, we’re showcasing Keith Woodlock, who came on as one of our most productive volunteers this past summer and then joined the Mifos team as a contractor.  He’s been an instrumental contributor helping to refactor the Mifos platform so it can be easier for other contributors to participate and build on top of Mifos.

 

Read more

Muciojad

Meet the 2010 Google Summer of Code Mifos Interns

/in /by

This year we’re excited to announce a class of 7 rock star Google Summer of Code interns who will be part of the Mifos team this summer. In now our second year participating in Google Summer of Code, we look to build off the successes of Udai Gupta and Johan Hilding, last year’s interns, by taking on a larger team that will help us to bring participation to a new level.

Our 7 students from around the world bring a diverse set of skills, interests, and perspectives that will help to extend the Mifos platform. Once again we had an incredibly impressive pool of applicants making it difficult to narrow them down to this group. We’d like to thank all for applying and the dedication you’ve shown in wanting to help end poverty through writing code.

Read more

Muciojad

Mifos Earns High Ratings in CGAP Software Review

/in /by

Grameen Foundation today announced that Mifos®, its open source technology solution, has earned high marks in its first rating on the Microfinance Software Listings and Reviews published by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). The leading resource for information on microfinance software products, it gave Mifos maximum points for technical capabilities and for its suite of professional services. The reviews are conducted by independent evaluators with feedback from users.

Launched in 2006, Mifos provides microfinance institutions (MFIs) with both a centralized, web-enabled platform and an online hosted model (“Mifos Cloud”).  Its high-level security features, connectivity, flexibility and overall architecture earned Mifos the highest marks for technical capabilities.  Additionally, it received 4 out of 4 stars for the comprehensive implementation, training and support provided by Grameen Foundation and its specialists in the various regions.

Read more