Kiva

Today Eva and me finally followed the advice of Mike Cannon-Brookes to invest in micro loans on Kiva. I’m a big fan of all ways of helping people in developing countries or environmental projects in a way that still follows the market economy laws. Specifically I think that micro loans are a brilliant way of doing this and was thrilled when last year’s Nobel peace prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, the real pioneers of micro loans.

My friend Anders (no blog) and I have been discussing this lately. Anders has, in a similar fashion, invested in a company (can remember the name) that works on developing more environmentally adapted energy sources. As this is risky business, he might well loose the money but if it turns out that they succeed the payoff for the environment will be that much higher.

You can follow our loan status here and like Mike I challenge you all to lend money on your own. We’ll try, but no guarantees as long as I’m living on paternity leave money, to match your loans. Leave a comment if you do.