FinTech Archives | Tony Loyd

Break the cycle of poverty with Okocha Nkem

147, Okocha Nkem, Mamamoni | Empower Women to Break the Cycle of Poverty

January 9, 2017 Tony Loyd

Mamamoni is a social enterprise that empowers women to break the cycle of poverty with free vocational skills and mobile loans. When Okocha Nkem was a child in Lagos, Nigeria, her father died. Because her mother had no marketable skills and no access to finance, the family was stuck in a cycle of poverty. When a family friend visited them, and saw their condition, he took pity and gave Nkem’s mother a small amount of money. Instead of using the money to buy much-needed food and school fees, Nkem’s mother took the money and traveled to a far off-village where she bought vegetables. She brought them back to Lagos and…

065, Stuart Yasgur, Ashoka Social Financial Services | Using Market Forces for Social Good

April 1, 2016 Tony Loyd

Ashoka Social Financial Services Group identifies and supports social entrepreneurs using market forces for social good. If you heard Episode 60 of Social Entrepreneur with Bill Drayton, you heard him talking about the power of a network of leading social entrepreneurs. The Social Financial Services group focuses on social entrepreneurs who are pursuing innovative approaches to access new sources of capital and use market dynamics to create social impact. Stuart Yasgur is just the right guy to run this group. He spent a decade working with startup and growth-stage businesses as a consultant in New York City. He obtained degrees from Cornell, Columbia and the London School of Economics. More…

Social Entrepreneurship Journalist Scott Anderson

054, Scott Anderson, NextBillion | Social Entrepreneurship through a Journalist’s Lens

March 7, 2016 Tony Loyd

Scott Anderson sees social entrepreneurship through the eyes of a journalist. He has been the Managing Editor of NextBillion since 2010. In 2004, C. K. Prahalad published his groundbreaking book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits. At the time, Scott Anderson was a business journalist in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He had a chance to read the book and to interview C. K. Prahalad. It left an impression. A few years later, the World Resources Institute published The Next Four Billion, a study of the market size and business strategies to reach the base of the pyramid. As a follow-up to this report, the World Resources…