Micro-Finance, the way of the future
Just read this book. Amazing. I cried. It is the way of the future.
Micro-Finance empowers the very poor with small loans to help them overcome their cycle of just having enough money to feed themselves, and not enough to save and invest in their activities or children.
The website www.kiva.org has just got a ton of press in the past few day (oprah, SVN…) (i just gave it more). The site allows you to directly loan small amounts of money to people around the world who are trying to improve their lives. This is taking micro-loans and opening it up even more, make the market more liquid and the community more global.
I have been watching the site for while and they seem to have a good set-up.
What I love about micro-finance is that it is based on the same logic as open-source technologies and collaborative work.
Some of the features are
- Strict rules: repayment in one year with weekly payments
- This is similar to strong rules set by central body of programmers who do open source software
- Easy way to identify delinquencies
- Groups are made of 5 people, the first two must complete half their loan before two more in the group receive theirs.
- This reduces the work of enforcing loans as they pretty much self-enforce themselves. This is much like wikipedia or linux where people in the community weed out the useless individuals without the intervention of the central body
- Anyone can participate – no collateral needed
- Primarily focused towards women – who are more honest and better at managing money (among other things)
- Scalable and applicable anywhere in the world – even the industrialized world
- People get bigger and bigger loans upon completion of their previous loans
Great stuff, really, run out and get the book.
Published on September 5, 2007The French, the English and the Ugly
Interesting debate on billingualism on Québec. Full Thread here on facebook.
The Original Post:
«On est une province bilingue, qui va de plus en plus vers trilingue, quadrilingue. Donc, je pense que c’est important de parler autant en anglais qu’en français, deux langues qui sont égales, qui sont reconnues au Québec» – François Beaudry, président de la Commission jeunesse du PLQ
Êtes-vous d’accord ou pas en accord avec cette position ?
Bon débat respectueux tout le monde. Nous ferons un effort de modération afin de ne pas personnaliser le débat…
And My Reply:
Let me try to address this. I am bilingual, Quebecois and Canadian. Dire que le Québec est le Québec parce qu’on parle le français n’est simplement pas vrai. Yes, we share a common language and by extension a common culture – colloquialisms, musicians, writers, and leaders.
Mais, ce qui nous tient ensemble est nos valeurs, notamment le libéralisme. Essaie de trouver en Amérique du Nord une joie de vivre comme celle de Montréal, la ville de Québec ou les petites villes à travers le Québec.
We cannot draw a line in the sand and say Quebecers are francophone the others are not. This smacks of racism and fear. In a globalized, connected world, he who segregates himself gets crushed – not the other way around. We must be open to cultures and languages, not try to tell people which ones are good and which ones belong overseas.
Sans la loi 101, je crois qu’il est très probable que la langue française aura été reléguée aux petits villages. Cela dite, il faut éviter les abus tels que les contraventions contre les entreprises au Chinatown qui ont leurs affiches en chinois ou les Anglophones qui ne peuvent pas communiquer avec leurs médecins en anglais.
Le français est une langue incroyable et nous ne devons pas insulter les anglophones pour le faire croître.
By including people of all backgrounds into Quebec society, we will create something much stronger than any uni-lingual society. Oui, français en premier, mais anglais comme deuxième langue officielle. Nous avons laissé tomber la société décrite dans “Two Solitudes” de Hugh MacLennan et il ne faut jamais retourner.
Si on respectait vraiment la langue officielle du territoire québécois, nous parlerions tous l’abénaki, algonquin, attikamek, cri, inuktitut, micmac, mohawk, montagnais et naskapi.
“If we unite, we will form a political nationality independent of the national origin and religion of individuals.” — 1865 George-Étienne Cartier
Cordialement,
Jonathan Olivier Brun
Donc, je suis d’accord avec François.
Interesting debate on billingualism on Québec. Full thread here on facebook.
The Original Post:
«On est une province bilingue, qui va de plus en plus vers trilingue, quadrilingue. Donc, je pense que c’est important de parler autant en anglais qu’en français, deux langues qui sont égales, qui sont reconnues au Québec» – François Beaudry, président de la Commission jeunesse du PLQ
Êtes-vous d’accord ou pas avec cette position ?
Bon débat respectueux tout le monde. Nous ferons un effort de modération afin de ne pas personnaliser le débat…
And My Reply:
Let me try to address this. I am bilingual, Quebecois and Canadian. Dire que le Québec est le Québec parce qu’on parle le français n’est simplement pas vrai. Yes, we share a common language and by extension a common culture – colloquialisms, musicians, writers, and leaders.
Mais, ce qui nous tient ensemble est nos valeurs, notamment le libéralisme. Difficile de trouver en Amérique du Nord une joie de vivre comme celle de Montréal, la ville de Québec ou les petites villes à travers le Québec.
We cannot draw a line in the sand and say Quebecers are francophone the others are not. This smacks of racism and fear. In a globalized, connected world, he who segregates himself gets crushed – not the other way around. We must be open to cultures and languages, not try to tell people which ones are good and which ones belong overseas.
Sans la loi 101, je crois qu’il est très probable que la langue française serait reléguée aux petits villages. Cela dit, il faut éviter les abus tels que les contraventions contre les entreprises au Chinatown qui ont leurs affiches en chinois ou les Anglophones qui ne peuvent pas communiquer avec leur médecin en anglais.
Le français est une belle langue et il n’est pas necessaire de contraindre les anglophone pour la faire croître.
By including people of all backgrounds into Quebec society, we will create something much stronger than an uni-lingual society. Oui, français en premier, mais anglais comme deuxième langue officielle. Nous avons laissé tomber la société décrite dans “Two Solitudes” de Hugh MacLennan et il ne faut jamais y retourner.
Si on respectait vraiment la langue officielle du territoire québécois, nous parlerions tous l’abénaki, l’algonquin, l’attikamek, le cri, l’inuktitut, le micmac, le mohawk, le montagnais et le naskapi.
“If we unite, we will form a political nationality independent of the national origin and religion of individuals.” — 1865 George-Étienne Cartier
Cordialement,
Jonathan Olivier Brun
Published on September 3, 2007Good interview about the Loblaw’s Green Bag Initiative
Pretty good interview outlining the project, benefits and pitfalls. I
have one or two of these bags and they are indeed very practical for
many things, not just groceries. It’s all about branding without the
logo. This project has helped brand Loblaw’s as the green grocer in
Canada, interesting to see how they fare in the future. They seem to
have many other – arguable more important – problems with their
operations.
Anyways, article is here:
Published on September 1, 2007Crazy Spider Web in TX
Coming of the apocalypse? Perhaps these are G.W.’s secret weapon, part of his arsenal of dark arts and devil worshiping.
Fire and Thunder
I love TED Talks because the people are so insanely passionate about what they are doing. As stated by Erin McKean, “The internet is made up of words and enthusiasm.”
And Keroac’s famous (unaltered) musing: “the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing … but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night.”
Forget complacency, waiting in line or doing what you’re told. Burn baby burn.
Published on August 30, 2007