Girls in Tech cordially invites you to attend
How Microfinance is Changing the Way We Live
featuring Kiva, Wokai, Microplace, TMC Working Solutions and PayPal
Microfinance is changing the way we look at sustainable living, economic development and welfare throughout the globe, even in the US.
During this Girls in Tech panel discussion we will highlight some of the most influential and powerful women in the microfinance world, as they share the trials and tribulations of running a microfinance or a microlending organization, share inspirational stories on helping women run businesses succeed in developing countries, provide insights on how technology is advancing global economies and more.
What is Microfinance?
Microfinance refers to the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed. The term also refers to the practice of sustainably delivering those services. Microcredit (or loans to poor microenterprises) should not be confused with microfinance, which addresses a full range of banking needs for poor people.
More broadly, it refers to a movement that envisions “a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers.” Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty.
RSVP at: http://gitmicrofinance.eventbrite.com/
A sold out Social Gaming Summit 2009, stirred a surprising amount of excitement and noise during a supposedly “hurting economy”. All of the major social gaming developers, designers, publishers, payment platforms, social networks, mobile players were in attendance which made for some solid networking, however, more significant to me, was the major power player women featured on key panels — and what a performance. 
Strong voices from the Monetization Infrastructure for Social Games included Erikka Arone from Zong and Renata Dionello from PayPal. The discussion led by Charles Hudson, co-founder of the Social Gaming Summit, focused on types of payment platforms that work the best for social games and why. Of course, each rep touted their own technologies and platforms, however, one thing was really clear – more is more. More payment options for users = more money in the bank. Erikka Arone is the VP of Business Development for Zong. She is responsible for partnerships with virtual goods and gaming companies to drive monetization and adoption. She has broad experience in numerous high-growth social web and mobile businesses. She was at Six Apart, where she was responsible for distribution and product partnerships for TypePad. Renata leads PayPal’s efforts in business development on the consumer side of the business. She is currently involved in developing PayPal’s strategy in the micropayments and social media space. Renata has over 10 years of experience in business development, strategy, product management and marketing.
Another super star female panelist was Anu Shukla, who spoke on the Customer Acquisition and Retention for Social Games panel. Anu Shukla founded Offerpal Media in June, 2007, with the vision of providing social application developers and other social publishers with a viable way to monetize their traffic. She has since grown Offerpal Media into the leading social advertising network on the Web, generating significant revenue for social publishers while driving high quality leads and high value customers to online advertisers. A serial entrepreneur, Anu is also the founder and CEO of Mybuys Inc., the leading provider of personalized product recommendations for online retailers.
Anu was the one person that really knocked my socks off during the conference. A strong, determined and witty lady, she drove the discussion as an expert in customer retention and acquisition delivering one key message – “It’s all about increasing RPGs.”
The Social Gaming Summit 2009 is a one day event focused on the intersection of games and the social web. This year’s event will focus on helping social games developers build, monetize, and grow their social games. We’re bringing together the leaders in free-to-play games, social networking, and payments infrastructure for a full day of panels and talks.
