The Mifos Initiative is a U.S.-based non-profit that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mifos X project. Founded in October 2011, the organization encompasses a community of financial service providers, technology specialists, financial services experts and open source developers working together to grow the Mifos X open source platform for financial services. Its goal is to speed the elimination of poverty by enabling financial service providers to more effectively and efficiently deliver responsible financial services to the world's 2.5 billion poor and unbanked.

History

Development of the software began as an initiative of the Grameen Foundation in 2004. It was initiated by James Dailey and Tapan Parikh, and launched as open-source software Mifos in 2006. The name "Mifos" originally came from an acronym "Micro Finance Open Source", but is now used as the brand, rather than an acronym. Mifos existed within Grameen Foundation until 2011, when it was decided that Mifos would split off to be an independent, open-source entity. On June 1, 2011, Grameen Foundation announced that it would be ending its direct involvement with the Mifos Initiative and transitioning the project to its own organization, the Mifos Initiative, which now controls the Mifos and MIfos X projects.

Community

The MifosX community includes developers, implementers, and users from various countries who collaborate through mailing lists, IRC, and annual conferences. MifosX organizes an annual summit for developers and users with conferences, exhibitions and other audience-oriented events. The 2012 summit was held in

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

, and in 2013, it was held at

Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. , the city had a population of 3.1 million, making it the tenth most populous city in the country. Jaipur is also known ...

in the month of October. Held in Kuampala, Uganda, the 2014 Summit was a four-day event with a large focus on hands-on training for partners and users, collaborative tech sessions for contributors, and educational sessions focussing on fin-tech and the financial inclusion sector. MifosX has also participated in several other independent events. In 2013, Mifos has participated in

Google Summer of Code The Google Summer of Code, often abbreviated to GSoC, is an international annual program in which Google awards stipends to contributors who successfully complete a free and open-source software coding project during the summer. , the program is ...

as well as

Random Hacks of Kindness Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a global community of technologists dedicated to solving problems for charities, non-profits and social enterprises by organising recurring Hackathons that has existed since 2009. The organisation currently has a ...

during RHoK Global December 2012. Moreover, Mifos has been part of the FinDEVr San Francisco 2014 event, acting as a sponsor. One of Mifos' members, James Dailey (board member and Chief Innovation Officer), took the stage to discuss the reinvention of banking. On the first of November, Mifos Initiative also took part in the Global Islamic Microfinance Forum, held in Dubai, UAE.

Management

CEO of Mifos Initiative is Edward Cable, its Execute Director is Craig Chelius.

Board of Directors

Paul Maritz Paul Alistair Maritz (born March 16, 1955) is a computer scientist and software executive. He held positions at large companies including Microsoft and EMC Corporation. He currently serves as chairman of Pivotal Software. Early life Paul Marit ...

(Chairman of the Board and CEO of Pivotal) * Zaheda Bhorat * James Dailey * Suresh Krishna (managing director of Grameen Financial Services Private Ltd) * Dave Neary * Craig Chelius * Edward Cable

Qualifications and prizes

* Mifos earns high ratings on CGAP Software Listings * Mifos won a Duke's Choice Award in 2009 for "Java Technology for the Open Source Community" * Mifos participated in the

Google Summer Of Code The Google Summer of Code, often abbreviated to GSoC, is an international annual program in which Google awards stipends to contributors who successfully complete a free and open-source software coding project during the summer. , the program is ...

2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. * Mifos also came as a runner up to the 'Fintech for Good' award, coming second after Deutsche Bank – Community Hackathons.

References

External links

*{{official website Financial software Free software programmed in Java (programming language) Microfinance