50 Weeks of Opportunity
Each week for the next 50 weeks, we will share a piece of Opportunity’s history—major or minor, sobering or inspiring, we have gotten where we are today by facing some of the world’s greatest challenges, with you by our side. Please join us in celebrating the many impactful moments that have built the foundation on which we will embark on our most audacious vision yet: ending extreme poverty.
Meet Ugandan Staff Member Frida Mungoma, Education Finance Manager
This past Monday, just after arriving in the United States, Opportunity Uganda‘s Education Finance Manager Wakhasa Frida Mungoma–known as Frida–sat down with me at the Opportunity-US offices in Oak Brook, Ill. for a discussion of her work, the challenges she faces and the most rewarding aspects of her job. Below, see brief excerpts of my conversation with the soft-spoken, dynamic education finance loan officer. This was just the first stop on Frida’s U.S. visit, which will take her all around…
Read MoreWhat We’re Watching: Top 3 Conference Videos on Technology
Check out our top 3 videos on technology from our fall conference in San Francisco–click on the speakers’ names to watch. 1. Steven LevySenior writer at Wired; Author of In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our LivesSteven Levy: “The most prominent leaders in the technology world today believe that the first step in doing the impossible is freeing yourself from the constraint that something can’t be done. What if we thought of ending poverty in that way? When I wrote In the Plex,…
Read MoreGrowing Rural Economies through Agricultural Finance in Africa
In the last decade, Opportunity International embarked on an agricultural finance and rural savings program to spur economic activity and provide enduring resources for smallholder farmers and other rural clients in five African countries, including Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda. Opportunity’s approach is to help farmers move from subsistence growing to cash crop production with agriculture-specific loans, savings accounts, crop insurance, effective fertilizers, drought-resistant…
Read MoreMicroEnsure’s Richard Leftley Named in Top 40 Under 40 by Devex
Richard Leftley, President & CEO of MicroEnsure, has been named one of London’s top 40 development leaders under 40 by Devex, a social enterprise that offers recruiting and business information services to professionals in international development. Leftley, an expert in microinsurance who has helmed Opportunity’s insurance subsidiary MicroEnsure since 2002, was interviewed by Devex Senior Editorial Associate Eliza Villarino. In “3 Questions for… Richard Leftley: A Microinsurance Visionary,”…
Read MoreA Call for Sustainable Development on Oct. 17, United Nations Poverty Eradication Day
Today, October 17, is the United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (IDEP) and this year’s theme is “From Poverty to Sustainability: People at the Centre of Inclusive Development.” First commemorated in 1987, the IDEP is “an annual opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of people living in poverty and to have their voices heard, recognizing that poor people are at the forefront of the fight against poverty and are critical partners for achieving sustainable development.”…
Read MoreBreakout Session: Microinsurance: A Powerful Safety Net
Opportunity’s MicroEnsure, the world’s first microinsurance intermediary, provides protection against the many risks faced by those living in poverty. Today, more than 3.2 million clients can fall back on our crop, loan, health, life and property insurance products in times of hardship or disaster. Who’d have thought that getting up at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning to listen to someone speak about microinsurance would have been so interesting? In this session, Richard Leftley talked about how…
Read MoreBreakout Session: Innovating to Meet Community Needs
“The more you listen and respond… the way you increase your chances of success and long term benefit is dramatic,” stated Jim Frantz, chief transformation officer at Opportunity Colombia, speaking about the importance of having local input and ownership when implementing initiatives in impoverished communities. This breakout session highlighted just a few of the innovative solutions to fighting poverty that have been implemented in Nicaragua, Colombia, and Ghana. David Allman began the session…
Read MoreConference LiveBlog: Panel with David Simms, Promod Haque and Deborah Farrington
Saturday morning at the Opportunity International Conference opens with a panel featuring David Simms, Board Chair of Opportunity’s Global Microfinance Operations; Promod Haque, Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners (NVP); and Debby Farrington, founder and general partner of StarVest Partners, L.P. Highlights from the Session Discussion Questions: 1. With your philanthropy you have “invested” in Opportunity. What are your key criteria for selecting the organizations in which you invest?…
Read MoreConference LiveBlog: Jeffrey Spector, Chief of Staff at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
This Saturday morning plenary session continues with a presentation by Jeffrey Spector, Chief of Staff for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Highlights from Jeffrey Spector’s Presentation "Innovations are not only happening in labs or on computers. I’ll give two examples: A few years ago, I was tasked with scaling up Gates’s organizations. We made an assumption: informal services are harmful to people in poverty. But in fact, people in poverty lead fantastically complicated financial lives.…
Read MoreConference LiveBlog: Actress and Philanthropist Connie Nielsen
Actress Connie Nielsen spoke from the stage today at this morning’s plenary session at the Opportunity International Conference. Connie founded the Human Needs Project (HNP) and Road to Freedom Scholarships in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya. She spoke today about her work with HNP and the power of working with a community to implement sustainable solutions to poverty, creating development not aid. Highlights from Connie Nielsen’s Presentation I was in a film called Lost in Africa. The premise…
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