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My Ventures
About Drew Meyers
Drew Meyers currently runs ESM Exec Designs, a design shop specializing in corporate and personal blog design. Travel addict managing Oh Hey World, a travel blog focused on generation X & Y, and real estate technology enthusiast. In his free time, Drew enjoys reading, traveling the world, spending time with passionate people, and is active member of the microfinance community.
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Past Projects
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Two Unfinished Ideas About The Future
Alex Payne has a fantastic post worth reading (which I actually found via my friend who shared it on Facebook) — “Two Unfinished Ideas About The Future” I wanted to highlight one of the ideas in particular: Radical Transparency What passes for transparency today is, in practice, mere translucency. Organizations reveal just enough information to avoid appearing closed and monolithic. They may attempt to communicate in a more human way, or provide open access to some of their data, but most remain fundamentally closed. Today’s “transparency” is little more than marketing. That which is not open is secret. Secrets are vulnerabilities waiting to be exposed. Secrets are the illusion of competitiveness. Secrets are the bondage … Continue reading
Heading to the Bay for a Week
Tomorrow (bright and early), I’m heading down to the San Francisco Bay area for a week of work/fun. I’m looking forward to a fun week attending RE BarCamp San Francisco on Tuesday and Inman Real Estate Connect from Wednesday through Friday. I’m confident RE BarCamp is going to be a blast, and will be followed by Beer with Bloggers on Tuesday evening. Both events are free thanks to sponsors, but I’d strongly encourage you to donate whatever money you would have otherwise paid for the knowledge and networking gained at the conference to the HousingforHomeless fundraiser that Ginger Wilcox has put together. It really is amazing what a life of its own this RE BarCamp … Continue reading
Unitus Video – Microfinance
I just posted this video over at myKRO, but thought I’d post it here as well. Good video for those looking to learn more about microfinance.
Lumana Credit Bringing Microfinance to Ghana, and A Launch Event in Seattle on July 23rd
Congrats to the team of UW Grads who are brining microfinance to Ghana with their project — Lumana Credit! There is a launch event this coming Thursday, July 23rd, in Seattle for those interested. I’ll be attending the Techflash event taking place that same evening, so won’t be able to make it — but for those in the Seattle area interested in microfinance, I’d highly recommend attending. Logistics: BoConcept Design Studio 901 Western Avenue Seattle, WA 98104 July 23 at 7:00 pm Particularly since I’m a University of Washington grad (2005) and passionate about microfinance, it’s great to see this type of initiative come out of UW!
Jolkona Foundation
My friend sent me an article about a local Seattle non profit — the Jolkona Foundation — worth checking out for those passionate about giving back to others. From their about page, their mission is To build awareness and mobilize our youth to support successful community development projects around the world. The site seems somewhat similar to Kiva since it focuses on fund raising for specific people or causes, but much broader in scope as a result of not being limited to microfinance — I’m not saying that being broader in scope is better (there are pros and cons both ways), just different. The organization was founded by Adnan Mahmud and Nadia Khawaja. I gave … Continue reading
A High School Senior who has Raised $130k — AWESOME
WOW, this blog entry from Brett Mennella on the Seattle Times is awesome to see. Here’s a little background on him: Brett Mennella, a senior at Bellevue High School (at right), helped start the school’s Microfinance Club, which focuses on learning about the global effect of microcredit. The club raised more than $130,000 in the last two years to support microloans, and decided to invest the money in Esperanza International, a global microfinance institution based in Bellevue founded by former Mariners catcher David Valle. This is the first of several posts he’ll be filing from the Dominican Republic, where he is doing volunteer work. Raising $130k by the age of 17/18 is no minor accomplishment, … Continue reading
