Kiva.org Makes It Easier For Microlenders
By Anna Johnson on February 7th, 2009One of our favorite ‘charities’ is not a charity at all. It’s Kiva.org, the non-profit microlending organization that enables you to make microloans to entrepreneurs based in third world countries. And now Kiva is aiming to encourage even more involvement from investors.
Kiva.org has just released ‘build.kiva.org’ – an open-source applications programming interface (API) that will enable software developers to create applications that interact with Kiva.org. Developers will get access to Kiva’s data on loans, entrepreneurs and the latest lending activity, and be able to develop applications that retrieve and use that data.
In fact, Kiva has actually provided a list of suggestions for applications developers may wish to create. Examples include a service where lenders can register for alerts on new entrepreneurs they want to fund, loan updates on Kiva, and a a map that simulates the real-time transfer of funds across the planet.
Even if you are not technically minded and uninterested in creating any Kiva applications, I’d encourage you to take a look at Kiva.org. The capitalist dream doesn’t get much better than when you help entrepreneurs who are doing it tough in some of the most challenging of circumstances.
