Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Spring 2006 : GFUSA’s Open Source Project
GFUSA’s Open Source Project to Innovate Microfinance
A revolutionary shift in technology for the microfinance sector is on the horizon with Grameen Foundation USA’s Microfinance Open Source Project (Mifos).
The project takes the innovative “open source” model and applies it to address sector-wide challenges -- information management and access to affordable technology and IT support. And with this new infrastructure, microfinance institutions will have resources freed to serve a greater number of people in need.
Mifos is a software program that will be publicly available and provide microfinance institutions with the ability to manage their clients, operations, portfolios and reporting needs with simplicity and flexibility. It is “open source” which means that the code and documentation are not owned or controlled by any one company. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) can openly share the program and edit the code to fit their local conditions.
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are often now reinventing the wheel in creating software to handle financial reporting and service delivery. A key aim of Mifos is that its open source nature will pool these efforts by drawing users to contribute to a single management information system (MIS) platform. Contributors from around the world in essence become experts that form a backbone of local technology support for microfinance institutions -- support that is currently too expensive or non-existent for organizations today.
The benefits of Mifos extend to workers on the ground. When a loan officer goes to a village to collect payments from borrowers and disburse new loans, he or she is handling hundreds of transactions per week totaling in the thousands per month. Mifos will help them manage high volumes of information so their credit and savings operations run more smoothly.
Besides a growing group of volunteer software engineers, Mifos benefits from experienced business volunteers like Kris Sowolla and Donna Halow. The brother and sister team bring decades of experience in financial services, product management, marketing and business development. Sowolla is currently working to recruit volunteer software programmers for Mifos and Halow will analyze additional business process requirements at Mifos beta test sites.
For more information on Mifos or becoming a technical volunteer, visit www.mifos.org or contact mifos@gfusa.org
Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Spring 2006 : GFUSA’s Open Source Project
Grameen Foundation uses microfinance and innovative technology to fight global poverty and bring opportunities to the world's poorest people. With tiny loans and financial services, we help the poor, mostly women, start businesses and escape poverty. Our global network of 55 microfinance institution (MFI) partners including our Growth Guarantee partners has touched more than 34 million people in 24 countries. In addition, we introduced and now sustain technology initiatives (Mifos and Village Phone) in Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, bringing our total country outreach to 28.
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