As part of Triple Pundit‘s partnership with the Social Capital Markets Conference 2010, blogger Amie Vaccaro is featuring a series of interviews with key conference participants. Don’t forget to get your 30% discount by using the code “3P30″ when you register!

David Hodgson is a Principal with The IdeaHive and a Converger with The International Futures Forum. He is also curating the Innovation in International Development track for Socap.

Watch my interview with David to learn:

• How David is working to inject environmentalism into the social enterprise conversation
• Why David is heartened by the international social enterprise community
• How natural disasters are bringing the movement to the forefront of the public’s consciousness
• Why the biosphere economy is the next big thing in social enterprise

On Wednesday, September 29th, SocialFinance.ca will be co-hosting a live chat on Twitter about the upcoming Social Capital Markets 2010 conference, specifically on how philanthropic capital and investment capital can align to maximize social and environmental impact.

Here’s a brief description of the #SoCap10 Twitter Chat:

You’re invited to a live discussion about the intersection of philanthropy and impact investing, featuring Kevin Doyle Jones of Good Capital and Social Capital Markets. Join fellow Twitterers in a 45 minute chat on Wednesday, September 29th, beginning at 2pm ET / 11am PT.

To participate in the chat, simply log into Twitter at the right time and follow the hashtag #SoCap10.Below are the event details, an agenda for the chat, and instructions on how to participate.

Event Details

Topic: Aligning Philanthropy and Impact Investing
When: Wed, September 29th, starting at 2pm ET / 11am PT
Duration: 45 Minutes
Hashtag: #SoCap10
Hosted by: @SoCap10 and @SocialFinance

Agenda

05 min - Introductions
10 min - What is philanthropy’s current role in capital markets?
10 min - What is meant by impact investing?
15 min - How can philanthropy and impact investing work together?
05 min - Where to find more information and how to register for SoCap10

How to Participate:

1) Log in or create an account on Twitter
2) Follow the >@SoCap10 account
3) Follow the #SoCap10 hashtag
4) To join the chat, include the hashtag #SoCap10 in your related tweets on Wednesday, September 29th, starting at 2pm ET / 11am PT

I’m looking forward to a lively discussion.

Note: For an excellent introduction to the topic of philanthropy and social capital markets, see this video interview with Sean Stannard-Stockton introducing the Tactical Philanthropy track of Social Capital Markets 2010.

- By Peter Deitz

The Next Generation of Microfinance

In the U.S. and other Western countries, access to higher education can easily be taken for granted when there are financial resources like grants or student loans to lessen the immediate burden of paying for college.

However, in most countries college loans don’t exist, creating an insurmountable barrier for students to continue their education and ultimately achieve their career goals. No matter how smart, passionate, and motivated you may be, if you don’t have the money, then college is not an option for you.

But visionary Kushal Chakrabarti is providing a solution. design mind ON AIR’s Chris Sallquist spoke with Kushal, the founder and CEO of Vittana, a person-to-person micro-lending Web site that makes it possible for students, wanting to go to college in developing countries, to get loans. With Vittana, a global community of lenders is rallying to help students to get higher education for the first time and relieve students from the worry of paying for college so they can focus on their passions. frog worked with Vittana to redesign and re-architect their website, making it easier to navigate by significantly improving the lending ecosystem, including the process of finding students, the actual loan transaction, and participating in the Vittana community.

Kushal talks with us about how Vittana has proven itself, the tricky negotiation to “do good” while financially sustaining an organization, and the impact that Vittana will have in the future. Kushal will be giving the keynote speech at this year’s SOCAP conference alongside Matt Flannery of Kiva. This particular presentation should be really fascinating because Kiva, a well-known pioneer of online micro-lending, just announced that they are expanding their process to allow their site’s lenders to fund loans to help students in developing countries, kicking off with students in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Lebanon. There has been a lot of discussion about what Kiva’s new venture will mean for start-ups like Vittana and I look forward to lively debate and insight into how their different models and the degree at which the two platforms are established factor into their ability to experiment, expand, and push the message of micro-lending for education forward.

Click here to hear the Kushal Chakrabarti Interview from design mind On AIR

- By Chris Sallquist (Cross Post from Design Mind Blog)

Cameron Campbell spoke with Lisa Lindberg, head of Marketing at Vittana about why its coming to SOCAP10 and what’s next for microfinance.

Vittana’s CEO Kushal Chakrabarti will be attending the conference.

Why is Vittana coming to SOCAP10?

We believe, like SOCAP, that it’s time to answer the question ‘What’s Next? for the social capital markets.
We think that building upon the success of microfinance by extending beyond a practice of providing capital to build small business, and using microloans to lift students out of poverty is the next step to take. By using microlending to provide needed funds in developing nations for college or vocational degrees that result in real, employable skills is a needed, effective next step forward. This is what we do, and we’r passionate about our work, our stories and sharing the results we are seeing.

This is a topic that is getting attention. On September 9th, the Economist ran an article entitled “Funding poor students could be the next big thing in microfinance” – we were very excited to be included, and are pleased to see these ideas starting to take hold.

We are excited to connect with others at SOCAP that share this vision.

What Announcements/ Good News will Vittana talk about at SOCAP10?

1. The early success we are seeing with our student lending programs:

Vittana empowers young people to complete their post-secondary or vocational schooling, and build a better future for themselves and their families.

Much like Muhammad Yunus built the Grameen model of traditional microcredit thirty years ago, today the Vittana model seeks to leverage the power microfinance to make education more readily available in developing nations. Our goal is to prove this model is financially viable for banks and capital markets, thereby catalyzing access to education for potentially millions.

We really see Vittana as a catalyst in starting student-lending microfinance programs in developing regions, on the ground, where it counts. We’re excited to work as an innovator, funding the “last mile” of education” for our students. And, much like the last mile of a marathon, it’s often the hardest, and the most important effort to make. We have found that if you can get someone between $200 - $1000 extra dollars and keep them in school an extra 6-12 months so they can graduate from a certificate or degree program, you can instantly make good on an 18+ year investment. Our students earn 200%-300% more post graduation - the difference between $3/6 per day and $18/day in wages. That’s a solution to poverty.

Vittana has expanded their student lending programs 5 countries; we’ve now funded over 500 students, and raised over $350k in student loans. Our loan repayment rate is 95%+, and we’re excited to see this model working.

Here are two stories that bring this home:

* Haward => http://huff.to/bIBG4j; he got a loan through Vittana, graduated and then offered his skills *pro bono* back to Vittana.

* Mercy => http://bit.ly/bfvtRT; she wanted to become a teacher, but needed to support younger siblings and started selling roast chicken in Huaycan, Peru. Fast-forward 8 years and a Vittana loan, she’s now graduating teaching school and already taken steps (e.g. school savings account) to make sure daughter never goes through same.

What’s Next for Vittana?

Vittana is expanding into Africa via their Clinton Global Initiative Commitment, announced last week.

The Clinton Global Initiative has highlighted Vittana’s Commitment To Action which brings student-lending programs to Africa as one of the key Education commitments in 2010, with a goal of having these lending program in place, and reaching 10,000 deserving students, by 2015.

Through its initiative, Vittana/Africa: Bringing Student Loans to Africa, Vittana will partner with some of Africa’s finest microfinance institutions to launch one of the first lending programs that specifically targets young people, helping fund their post-secondary education. These loans will help 10,000 students complete the “last mile” of their education by the year 2015. With about $1,000, within one year these students can gain real, employable skills in fields such as nursing, law enforcement, and IT, changing the entire trajectory of their lives.

-By Cameron Campbell and Lisa Lindberg

Janell Kapoor is joining SOCAP10 as part of the Innovation in International Development Track and is a panelist in the “It Takes a Village: Innovation From the Ground Up” discussion.

KLEIWERKS INTERNATIONAL: Building The World We Want

After a life of pioneering innovative design, Buckminster Fuller asserted that options do exist to successfully surmount the crises of unprecedented scope and complexity facing all humanity. He challenged the world to find solutions to these crises that integrate social, economic, environmental, policy and cultural system strategies¹. One complex crisis that faces the world today is the building industry, which uses 40% of the earth’s natural resources and contributes 40% to the waste stream while hundreds of millions of people live with inadequate shelter, have been displaced altogether, or are experiencing a profound disconnect from that which truly sustains them. Add to this the deteriorating morale of whole populations of people who have neither the voice nor the means to improve their desperate situations. What’s the solution?

Founded in 1998, Kleiwerks International is a non-profit organization and a global network of innovative design specialists collaborating with communities to create ecological and social resilience. With extensive projects in South America and Southeast Asia, alumni from over 34 countries, and collaborative programs currently underway in Haiti, Kleiwerks International is a global leader in natural building and sustainable systems design, education, and development. The Kleiwerks approach to working globally is based on collaboration with local communities. They work by invitation only, conducting hands-on trainings for local leaders while building projects that serve the community at large. Then the trainees go on to lead and train others in their own communities, creating ecologically sound housing, food, and water systems that build relationships between their own peoples, their land., and the greater movement. Kleiwerks International also engages systems change through policy development so that these solutions can be made available in ways that could reduce the building industry’s consumption by 80%. The Kleiwerks International approach fosters regional networks between instructors, alumni, government officials, and invested citizens that integrate lasting social, economic, environmental, policy and cultural system resiliency that Fuller asserted were possible.

Let’s take this one step further. What happens when we invest in that which we most deeply wish to see in the world? What is most important to you, your family, and to your fellow humanity? What would you not do without? When asked this question, people the world over answer that ‘happiness’ is the one thing they want most. In interviews that Kleiwerks International conducted with over 3,000 people, the answer to where we go to feel happiest is: Nature. So, what does it look like to invest in systems, in an economy, that brings us closer to and sustains that which makes us happy? What would our lives be if this connection were inherently fostered through an economy based on place? The innovative solutions that Kleiwerks International offers are pathways that provide for our basic needs through deeper, more resilient connections between ourselves, each other, and the rest of the living world.

¹ The Buckminster Fuller Institute. 27 July 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. < http://www.bfi.org/node/2125>.

-By Janell Kapoor, Founding Director of Kleiworks International