Diaspora Camp DC 2010 - African diaspora Barcamp focused on Access to capital & SME finance

Diaspora Camp DC 2010

DiasporaCamp is a BarCamp with a focus on African Diaspora, primarily African affairs and issues. DiasporaCamp DC follows the successful organization of BarCamp Diaspora in Washington, DC on July 25, 2009. The event brought together Africans and people interested in Africa for a day of demos, dialogue and discussion about Africa. The theme was " Investing our talent where it counts."

DiasporaCamp DC 2010 will be held from 9am to 6pm on July the 24th, 2010 at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

The Proposed Theme for our July 24th Event is: Financial innovations for African small & medium-scale enterprises.

2010 MIF competition for innovative financial solutions

The Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Bank will co-host an international Marketplace on Innovative Financial Solutions for Development (2010 MIF) to be held in Paris on March, 4-5 2010.

The 2010 MIF will be dedicated to smart, fine-tuned, innovative financial mechanisms for mobilizing, channeling, and spending funds for development issues. The event will bring together development practioners, donors, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, academics, representatives from across a range of financial institutions and policy makers to exchange experience and ideas on innovative development finance solutions. The event will be structured around workshops and a marketplace where innovators can showcase their initiatives and projects. The main objectives of the event are to:

The main objectives of the event are to:

• advance the agenda on innovative financial solutions for development;
• facilitate knowledge sharing and learning, including South/South learning, on innovative financial solutions for development, what works and what doesn’t , and how to design solutions to maximize development impact and cost-effectiveness; and
• spur the evolution of cutting-edge projects that apply innovative financial mechanisms to development challenges.

The Competition

A key feature of the 2010 MIF will be a competition to garner and highlight fresh ideas on how innovative financing mechanisms can be used to solve development challenges at the local, country, regional, or global levels, with the goal that successful innovations can be scaled up and replicated.
The winners will be awarded pilot grants of up to US$100,000 to assist them in the implementation of their proposals.

Proposals are welcomed from all organizations involved in innovative finance focused on development, including financial institutions, private-sector companies, social enterprises, non-governmental and civil society organizations, government agencies, universities and other academic organizations, foundations, and development organizations. Guidelines and application forms can be accessed on the 2010 MIF website: www.fininnov.org

Proposals must be submitted by November 15th 2009.

For further informations, please contact: info@fininnov.org