Kiva.org, the non-profit people-to-people microlending organization, is rolling out an open-source API platform for techies interested in building tools and new applications for the microfinance/microlending community. Kiva wants ‘build.kiva.org’ to become a hub for socially-minded developers who want a make a difference in the world (and create cool applications).
Here’s a list of the current APIs. Kiva advises that they are going to add more. Some examples of data developers can access through the API include:
- all of the loans at Kiva currently raising funds
- all of the entrepreneurs from Uganda and Peru which have fully repaid their loans
- the latest lending activity on Kiva
- financial nitty-gritty for any of Kiva’s loans
- the list of loans made by any one of Kiva’s lenders with a public lender page
Kiva even makes some suggestions to developers of several products that could be built from the API. Here are a few, but you can access all of the ideas through the Kiva developer’s Wiki.
- an application for iPhone or Blackberry that let’s you keep up with Kiva on the go
- service where lenders can register for alerts on new entrepreneurs they want to fund
- integration into a social network where friends can engage around each others’ activity and loan updates on Kiva
- a map that simulates the realtime transfer of funds across the globe
How is their regular business going so far. Any numbers available?
Kiva is a NPO, but you’ll find numbers on their success in bringing together lenders and recipients on their site.
Key facts:
- Total value of all loans made through Kiva: $58,395,185
- Number of Kiva Lenders: 434,702
- Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva: 83,419
- Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with): 94
- Current repayment rate (all partners): 97.50% (!)
Smile! Gerrit – We speak Online.
We are big fans of kiva here in India. A great example of changing the world through technology.
Anjali Sen
http://smartbab...xy.blogspot.com
Any numbers available?
http://kisalt.net/fb
Nice to see Kiva.org are still going strong (at least they appear to be). Fantastic concept and I’m definitely interested in becoming an active donor.
All the facts you could want here:
http://www.kiva...bout/help/stats
To date:
- over $58 million in loans
- a loan every 31 seconds
- over 400,000 lenders
- borrowers in 43 countries
- average loan size $432
- 97.5% repayment rate
Yes very cool api.
The time are a changing !
It’s great to see Kiva.org succeed. I’m excited to see what comes out of their API.
Any programmers want to cook something up?
I own MicroLend.org and I’d love to host your creations.
Tweet me if you’re interested!
@socialcoop
How about developing some kind of automated Robin Hood that sends out Nigerian Scam spam email and automatically transfers funds collected to worthy debtors
my bad – make the last word ‘borrowers’
It would be interesting to see what synergy could be created with things like Facebook causes. I wonder if maybe there’s some API magic that could glue established communities on other Social Networks to Kiva’s financing model. Rather than just have bunches of non-active cause members on Social Networks it would be interesting to see if they could be ‘mobilised’ through such integration…
For any interested, I have created an social graph of the relationships between Kiva’s partners and the loan recipients:
http://www.howw...e-kiva-network/
if anyone wants to work on an opensocial app, tweet me @danmelton.
Joined the site last night and made my first loan, its a pretty powerful that you can be an angel or vc for someone else, lol, while looking for your own. Puts things in perspective.
love seeing good things happen to people doing good.
It’s great to see that social entrepreneurs can build a successful business, and hopefully we’ll see a lot more startups focusing on the social good as a result.
I’m working on an application to increase transparency in the microcredit industry. Anyone want to join efforts let me know.
Wrote an small script to fetch all lending activities and pushed into twitter account:
https://twitter...kivalendactivts
People can follow all the kiva lending activites @kivalendactivts.
Please let me know your feedback.