There are always a few preliminary discussions to have before making a staff trip.  A staff member has to decide where they want to go, then work with the Kiva manager for that part of the world, then work with the partners to arrange a trip.  The story makes more sense if I mention these discussions and a little background.

Pre-Pre-History 

Tech work like this predates Kiva by a lot.  Specialized, mature NGOs exist specifically to improve IT in the developing world and they do good work.  Usually, however, they need a LOT of money to make that happen.  Also, sometimes the NGOs must maintain these systems indefinitely, or they fall apart.

Informing many of my decisions is my desire to avoid harmful waste and pass knowledge on to more useful beings than I.  So when considering a staff trip I had training in mind from the start, but wasn't sure if I could fit it in.  I used to do some training professionally.  It was the most productive and least lucrative thing I ever did for work.   

Pre-History

Within Kiva, the idea of providing tech help to MFIs has probably been an idea since day 1 of business operations.  We are sending energetic, bright people out to the third world all the time, so it makes sense that we look into ways we can do some good there.

I suspect but am not sure that technical training has been an informal function of the a Kiva volunteer program called the "fellows" program, and that they receive training in this.  Some tech work does get done by fellows - many fellows are programmers or at least can whip up a website.  It's possible that other staff trips have focused on this issue, and engineering sends people out to integrate MFIs with the Kiva Partner API.  Everyone is busy at Kiva so no one had ever explicitly mentioned anything about tech training to me. 

History

First, it was decided between Ben Elberger and I (Ben is the guy at Kiva who manages stuff in west Africa), sometime in 2009 or 2010, that I should visit west Africa, and help a few partners there with their IT ops.  That was to be my one week staff trip.  As with all of our regional managers, Ben is ridiculously busy, so he provides mainly authorization, an introductory contact with the MFIs, and best-effort advice on how to handle travel and do business in the country.

Around August, an informal date of Oct 2010 was set for two partners in Sierra Leone.  I would try to find another staff member or two to come with and help out.  I then began discussions with our MFI partners in Sierra Leone via email.

Back: Sierra Leone February 2011

Next: