View from my window at BancoFie

Just outside of my office at BancoFie is a poster that caught my eye on my first day of work as a Vittana Fellow. It says:“La Paz no es un obyecto encontrado por casualidad. Es el producto de la igualidad entre los hombres.” – -“Peace is not an object found by chance. It is the result of equality between men.”

I can’t help but read it nearly every time I come to work, as a reminder of what Vittana and BancoFie are all about and the reason I’m here in La Paz. Access to credit for young people is a small but vital step towards improving equality and peace around the world.  I have always thought access to quality education is among the most profound inequalities, as education is key to breaking the cycle of poverty, to meaningful wages, to improving quality of life and uplifting individuals and communities alike.  It cannot be an option only for the privileged, the wealthy or geographically advantaged – a quality education must be accessible for us all.  Thanks to the collaboration of Vittana with partners like BancoFie, more and more young people are grasping an opportunity to further their education and brighten their future! I’m proud to be partnering with an organization with such a focus on improving lives and offering hope to their fellow citizens.

Passing Plaza San Pedro on the way to work.

On my first day I made the 20 minute uphill trek to the BancoFie headquarters in San Pedro and although still out of breath from altitude sickness, I settled right in to a discussion on the current success of the student loan program and the desire to expand the program outside of the city. There was a specific interest in reaching more rural areas where there are even less opportunities for higher education. I got a strong sense of social responsibility from my colleagues at BancoFie and I was happy to hear that they were thinking “outside the box” – or in this case outside of the city centers.

I took a good look at the BancoFie manual and was instantly drawn to their slogans “Un banco para la mayoría” and “ Llegamos donde nos necesitan”  – “A bank for all” and “We go where we are needed”. I can relate to this as a social worker interested in addressing marginalized populations – those most ignored and left behind in society.  So I figure that is why I’m here: to reach those for whom Vittana and access to educational loans is most desperately needed, where others might not venture, where a true difference can be made. So here I am, taking a path less traveled, just like Vittana and BancoFie; “donde me necesitan”.

Outside of BancoFie Headquarters

A Little Bit of History:

BancoFie is a bank with a very interesting history that only proves further that big things start small.  Starting with five inspired and motivated women over twenty-five years ago, a small NGO was created in La Paz that eventually became the largest microfinance institution in Bolivia. What’s even better is that BancoFie has held steadfast to their mission and focus of dedicating their work to those who otherwise have no other avenue to access credit. Dedicated to reaching the most marginalized populations, slowly but surely they went “From one computer to the biggest microfinance bank in Bolivia”.

Settling In 

Lake Titicaca from Cobacabana

Of course my first week in Bolivia hasn’t been all work and no play. It has included some adjustment to the altitude and culture, some exploring at Lake Titicaca and taking in the hustle and bustle of La Paz.  Although navigating around the intense traffic is quite scary (even for a New Yorker!), I’ve managed to encounter great people, charming cafes, beautiful plazas and parks and even a yoga studio!

I am truly enjoying this extremely diverse city in many ways; a place where the temperature and climate changes both by the minute and by the zone of the city you happen to be in. A popular local saying is “Las cuatro estaciones en un solo día” — All of the seasons in one day.  In just my first week here, I believe it!  La Paz is definitely a place with much to discover and will keep you on your toes. Of course the view of snow capped mountains peeking through high rises above scattered homes climbing the hillside; well that isn’t too bad either. Check it out!

La Paz Skyline

Are you a Rails developer? Join our team!

Job Description

Vittana is looking for a scrappy Rails developer to join our team and help build www.vittana.org into the #1 marketplace for global education. Vittana is already a recognized leader in Seattle (Seattle 2.0: “Best Non-Profit”, Fast Company: “5 Social Capitalists Who’ll Change the World”, New York Times: “next new thing”) but we have our sights set on something even bigger: serving 1,000,000 students by 2015!

We’re putting together a small, top-caliber engineering team and we’d like you to be part of it. You’ll work closely with the team to launch big new features (24-hour lending challenge, anyone?), continuously improve our website product (AARRR!), and help develop back-end systems to help us scale. Your work will be a big part of helping us achieve our mission, so you need to not only be a wickedly smart developer, but you also need to care about changing the world. We’re hard-headed idealists here, and we’re looking for a few more to join our team.

Responsibilities:

1. Launch new website features and continuously improve web U/X (65%)

• Implement pages using HTML/CSS + JS from design PSDs + interaction flows for new pages and/or major new functionality
• Independently iterate and continuously improve customer U/X based on Vittana-specific user metrics
• Develop and launch new functionality using Ruby on Rails, jQuery,

2. Help develop back-end systems for scale (25%)

• Iteratively improve operations pipeline (e.g. customer service, student supply chain) with operations team

3. Help maintain existing systems (10%)

4. Do whatever it takes to get this bird off the ground

Skills

Required:

• Ruby on Rails, MySQL, HTML/CSS + JS
• Passion for building amazing products and rock-star U/X
• Ability to work in agile + iterative development environments

Strongly Desired:

• B.S. or B.A. in Computer Science, HCI or related discipline; however, we’re more impressed by passion than degrees, GPAs or years of experience.
• Work experience at a previous startup or personal side projects

How to Apply

We want to know how you think. Tell us three things you’d love to change, add, remove or overhaul completely about Vittana’s current website: www.vittana.org.

Email your three suggestions,  your resume and a few sentences introducing yourself to jobs@vittana.org with “Rails Developer // [your name]” in the subject line.

More about Vittana & Your Role:

We’ve been successful, and it’s clear that our cause resonates with people. As we enter the next stage of our mission, we need to tap into even more inspiration and translate that into more real impact. Your job is simple: build the best website product on the planet. We’re looking for someone who wakes up every morning, thinking “How do I put more students in college today?”

You will be underpaid, overworked — just like the rest of us! — and may on occasion be asked to carry 6-ton elephants on your back across a bed of nails while being chased by a pack of hungry Antarctic penguins. (And deal with the CEO’s bad jokes!) But, as a very early employee and a member of the core team, you will help re-define what education means for young people around the world and help set the direction of what that really means. In short, what you do will matter.

Though we’re still a young organization, we are backed by world-class VCs and entrepreneurs, and have been rocketing forward for the past 3 years:

• growth: 10x annual portfolio growth for last 3 years: 0 -> $50K -> $500K; on track for $3-5M to 5,000 students in 2011
• impact: 291% income change, e.g. $3/day -> $8/day after a Vittana loan in Vietnam
• viability: 99% repayment by ~1,000 students
• press: “Best Non-Profit” (Seattle 2.0), “5 Social Capitalists Who’ll Change the World (Fast Company), “hotbed of innovation” (Economist), “next new thing” (New York Times), “superbien” (LA Times), etc.
• supporters: Mitch Kapor, Tim O’Reilly, Motwani Circle, Peery Foundation, early executives from Amazon, Google and Microsoft
• team: key executives, staff and board members from Amazon (CEO led tech for $1B team at Amazon), Unitus (15-year industry veteran COO), and Kiva

Our Mission

In most developing countries, student loans just don’t exist. Together, as a community of people who believe in the power of education, we are enabling young people around the world to finish their education and achieve their dreams.

Vittana works with microfinance organizations in developing countries to build student micro-loan programs, often providing the first and only real access to financial aid to would-be students. Students from those programs appear on our website and, because of the $25 and $50 loans that people like you and I make, are able to get the money they need to finish their education.

When you make a loan through Vittana, 100% of your funds go to the student. Using your loan, the student finishes college (or vocational school or technical school) and gets her degree. When the student repays, Vittana repays you the full amount of your loan — if you lent $25, you are repaid $25.

Here at Vittana, we talk a lot about the value of education.  And while we may often ruminate on the intrinsic value of what we learned in college–the beauty of learning for learning’s sake–we also know know that simply having an education doesn’t let us pay our bills or (start to) pay back our student loans.

The same is just as true, if not more so, for our students in Nicaragua, Peru, and Paraguay.  Vittana students go to school for a variety of reasons: to follow a passion, to make their families proud, to be an expert in their field.  But, no matter what their passion or profession, every Vittana student sees their education as a means to one common goal:  a well-paying job to support themselves and their families.

With that goal in mind, the team was thrilled to hear last week that Paraguayan student David Antonio Adorno Arriola had become the first Vittana student to land a job because of training paid through a Vittana loan!  David’s passion is computer programming and he used his Vittana loan to pay for a short-course program that awarded him a programming certificate.  The certificate made his resume much more marketable and he quickly found work after the program.

Upon finishing this program and with his new source of income, David Antonio decided that he wanted to continue his education and pursue a bachelor’s degree in computer science.  (Many university students in Paraguay attend night school and have to simultaneously work at full-time jobs to pay for their tuition.)  Given Vittana’s technology roots, we think David is particularly awesome.

Congratulations David!