The project that will initially benefit most from the merger will be GF-USA's Village Computing Project in India. This important initiative establishes "village computing centers" that connect the rural poor to information, services and products by establishing Internet kiosks as franchise businesses run by the families of micro-finance beneficiaries.
"Creating a collaborative environment where sector standards are developed, key partnerships are forged, and a more advanced business model evolves, is key to driving the Village Computing Project forward and achieving the necessary scale to reach the rural poor in a way that is sustainable and replicable," said Peter Bladin, Director of GF-USA's Technology Center. "The merger with Digital Partners puts us in an excellent position to achieve this."
"There is much to be learned about how best to bring these services to the poorest communities," said Paul Maritz, a Digital Partners board director and former Group Vice President with Microsoft, who also serves on the Technology Advisory Council of GF-USA. "The merger will bring new focus to evaluating and demonstrating best practices for government interaction, technology infrastructures, project scaling, and capturing financial and social returns. This work will create new, replicable, efficient models."
GF-USA is a non-profit organization that exists to advance the practice and reach of micro-finance in all regions of the world, including inner-cities in the United States, expanding the success of Grameen (Rural) Bank, which serves 3.7 million poor households in Bangladesh. Founded in 1997, GF-USA has -- through its work with local partners organizations, commonly known as "micro-finance institutions" -- transformed several million lives by providing small loans to the poorest of the poor. Today the GF-USA network includes 48 partners in 20 countries serving more than 800,000 clients. GF-USA's Technology Center was established in 2001 to promote technology applications that make the delivery of micro-finance more efficient, provide income-generating opportunities for the rural poor, and bring access to information and communication technologies to poor communities. The Grameen Technology Center was recently named a 2004 Tech Museum Awards Laureate, an honor that celebrates those who leverage new and existing technologies to benefit humanity.
