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Vikram Akula, SKS Microfinance

Filed in archive Microfinance on August 14, 2006

Vikram Akula, SKS Microfinance
A good interview with Vikram Akula, CEO of SKS Microfinance in Hyderabad, at The Tribune India:

He has been named by Time magazine as one of 'The People Who Shape Our World' for 2006. Vikram Akula, the Founder and CEO of SKS Microfinance, one of the world's fastest growing microfinance institutions, is not resting on his laurels. The Hyderabad-based social entrepreneur wants to make a difference to the lives of seven lakh women by helping them become economically self-reliant by March next.

What distinguishes this doctorate holder from University of Chicago are his efforts in infusing cutting edge technology innovations to, in Time's words, "make venture capital available to more of the 800 million people in India". The Tufts University graduate, who is an MA in International Affairs from Yale University, returned as a Fulbright scholar to India to coordinate a project on providing microfinance to marginal farmers.

He started Swayam Krishi Sangham (SKS) Microfinance in 1998 with a clear understanding that technology could be used to automate the extremely manually intensive processes of microfinance, which enabled rapid scaling. Today, SKS's highly standardised processes, which, among others, replaced passbooks with smart cards, have attracted the attention of the likes of Vinod Khosla, Founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, with Rs 11.2 crore funds.


Other microfinance stories for today ...

*At Africa Unchained, a case study from JETHRO on SME access to finance.

*Everybody Loves Kiva.

*A Peruvian microfinance institution, two Colombian non-profit organizations and a social entrepreneur in Ecuador have won the Inter-American Development Bank's annual awards for microenterprise development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

*Are you a social entrepreneur?



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