February 1st, 2013
12pm-2pm, James Room (Barnard Hall)
Rachel Cook, Seeds
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Rachel Cook is a former Futures and Equities Trader who left finance to direct and product The Microlending Film Project, a global exploration of the impact of microloans on women that she launched after reading an NYT op-ed on the topic while sitting on the trading desk. The filmmaking team included a Director of Photographer who has worked on more than 50 studio Hollywood films, including Terms of Endearment and Fargo, an Editor who has cut several films for Oscar-nominated documentarian Jon Alpert, and a Composer who has produced for the Grammy-nominated Shiny Toy Guns.
While filming in Nairobi, Rachel became aware of the vibrant mobile-based startup culture in East Africa, and after discovering that the average social gamer is a 43-year-old woman, founded Seeds. Rachel is a 2006 graduate of Duke University and grew up in rural Ohio. She now resides in Brooklyn.
Seeds is a patent-pending social game and Application Programming Interface (API) for iPhone that allows players to make tiny loans to the cell phones of female entrepreneurs in Kenya through any digital game.
Seeds is focused on benefitting women, transforming the definition of gaming - we at Seeds believe in a future in which children think games are "fun things to play that also help people" - and on dispelling the notion that profitability and efforts toward increasing social good within a company cannot co-exist.
Alex Budak, StartSomeGood
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Alex Budak is a social entrepreneur and travel writer and the co-founder of StartSomeGood. He received a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Geography from UCLA. He's spoken on social entrepreneurship at the White House, World Bank and leading Universities, and has written about it in The Guardian, US News and other publications.

StartSomeGood is a peerfunding site - a platform for social entrepreneurs to gather a community and raise the funds needed to create change. By connecting social entrepreneurs with the financial and intellectual capital they need to transform an idea for improving the world into a reality, together we can turn ideas into action and impact.
Nicole Meyers, Grameen America
Nicole Meyers is the Associate Director of Strategic Development at Grameen America. She oversees client products, external partnerships and communication for the organization. Her background is in African economic development and has worked with several microfinance-based organizations abroad to promote community development through entrepreneurship. Ms. Meyers has a B.A. from Bucknell University and speaks Spanish and Swahili.

Grameen America: Founded by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, Grameen America is dedicated to helping women who live in poverty build small businesses to create better lives for their families. Grameen America offer micro-loans, training and support to transform communities and fight poverty in the United States.



Muskan Chopra, Kiva
Muskan Chopra was a Kiva Fellow in Nairobi, Kenya from June to August 2012. She is a second year student at Columbia Business School with a focus on Social Enterprise. At Columbia Business School, she has had a wide variety of experiences through her membership in the Social Enterprise Club, joining her peers in pro bono consulting projects for mission-driven businesses. Prior to Columbia Business School, Muskan was a Product Manager at Bloomberg and served on the board of three New York-based non-profits, including Acumen Fund's NY Chapter and iMentor.
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Muskan received a B.A. in Economics from New York University.

Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world. Since Kiva was founded in 2005, over 800,000 lenders have given approximately $400 million to entrepreneurs in 5 continents.
Agenda
11.30am - Doors open, coffee served
12pm - Panel starts
12.50pm - Q&A
1.10pm - Networking Lunch for Attendees, Panelists and Invited Guests
2pm - Concluding remarks. Event ends
Finance for Good
