Event

The story of Kiva.org - Author Bob Harris and Kiva CEO Matt Flannery

Tuesday, June 4th
7:00pm
Kepler's Books
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025

TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE THIS EVENING AT KEPLER'S BEFORE THE EVENT

Hired by ForbesTraveler.com to review some of the most luxurious accommodations on Earth, and then inspired by a chance encounter in Dubai with the impoverished workers whose backbreaking jobs create such opulence, Bob Harris had an epiphany: He would turn his own good fortune into an effort to make lives like theirs better. Bob found his way to Kiva.org, the leading portal through which individuals make microloans all over the world: for as little as $25-50, businesses are financed and people are uplifted. Astonishingly, the repayment rate was nearly 99%, so he re-loaned the money to others over and over again.

After making hundreds of microloans online, Bob wanted to see the results first-hand, and in The International Bank of Bob he travels from Peru and Bosnia to Rwanda and Cambodia, introducing us to some of the most inspiring and enterprising people we've ever met, while illuminating day-to-day life--political and emotional--in much of the world that Americans never see.

Matt Flannery began developing Kiva in late 2004 as a side-project while working as a computer programmer at TiVo Inc. In December 2005 Matt left his job to devote himself to Kiva, full-time. As CEO, Matt has led Kiva's growth from a pilot project to an established online service with partnerships across the globe and hundreds of millions in dollars loaned to low income entrepreneurs.

"Bob Harris shows us how to save the world without being an insufferable prig The International Bank of Bob is enlightening, inspiring, and entertaining." -- Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Better Angels of Our Nature