Jessica Jackley, Co-founder of Kiva.org, Speaks April 2

By Lanita Withers Goins, University Relations

Contact: (336) 334-4314

Posted 3-24-09

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva.org, the world’s first peer-to-peer online microlending web site, will speak at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Thursday, April 2.

The 7:30 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public. The talk will be in Mead Auditorium, Sullivan Science Building. It’s sponsored by the BELL (Building Entrepreneurial Learning for Life) Program.

Kiva lets internet users make relatively small loans to developing world entrepreneurs, providing affordable capital to help entrepreneurs start or expand a small business. Lenders can contribute with as little as $25. Since the site launched in March 2005, loans totaling more than $64 million have been made in more than 40 countries with a repayment rate of 98 percent. Kiva will have facilitated loans totaling $100 million by 2010.

Jackley was inspired to co-found the web site in 2004 after witnessing firsthand the power and dignity of microfinance while working in rural East Africa. There, she saw how grants of $100 to $150 were able to build small businesses that could support a family, drastically improving the standard of living.

Her work with Kiva has been featured in a wide array of media and press including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist and more. Jackley speaks widely on microfinance and social entrepreneurship, and serves as a director on several boards related to microenterprise development, including Opportunity International.

Jackley earned a MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and political science from Bucknell University.

For more information, contact Jessica Beamon, BELL program coordinator, at jabeamon@uncg.edu or (336) 334-9701.