By Julia Kurnia
We were incredibly honored to receive an invitation to serve as a delegate representing the entrepreneur community at the inaugural Global Accelerator at the United Nations in New York.
The event brought together the founders of 100 of the most game-changing social enterprises from around the world, and eminent entrepreneurs such as Michael Dell, Arianna Huffington and Ashish Thakkar. The delegates worked with leading UN officials to accelerate solutions to accelerate achievement of the Millennium Development Goals: advancing youth employment, gender equality, clean water and more.
The UN officials were especially interested in the way Zidisha has created self-employment and job creation opportunities for young adults in developing countries by connecting them to the international person-to-person lending market. I had the opportunity to share our work with officials from the UN Development Program, the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth, UNICEF, and the UN First Ladies’ Conference, and representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Global Health Corps.
Being invited to such a select gathering soon after our graduation from Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s top startup incubator, shows that Zidisha is gaining prominence not only in America’s tech startup community, but also among world leaders who are working to improve conditions in the most marginalized countries. It’s an incredible validation of what we have built, and everyone whose lending, transformation of loan capital into thriving businesses, volunteering, advice and financial support helped make our lending community what is today should be proud.
