What really happened is that I got an e-mail from James McGovern – author of the Enterprise Architecture and other blogs – who invited me to join the OWASP group on Kiva.

Confused yet? Really, I was, did not know who James McGovern is, did not know what Kiva is, and hadn’t got the faintest idea where did he find me – thanks LinkedIn it took only about 10 minutes to find both of his profiles, it turns out we share a LinkedIn group and I commented on his blog. Nevertheless, a bit less “run of the mill” like invitation would have been a bit better.

So after clearing up the “Who is James McGovern?” mystery I checked out Kiva. If you don’t know what it is about I urge you to check it out, but basically it is a non-profit organization + a system to lend small – like 25USD – amounts of money to entrepreneurs in developing countries, like Cambodia, Peru, Kenya, Tadjikistan and so on.

Lending money to people who has no chance to get it from the banks because they actually need the money. The entrepreneurs are rated on a risk scale of 1-5, and the site clearly state that there is a chance that you will never see your money again, and there are couple of pages explaining the process, the risks, how they rate and so on.

I always thought that the saying “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat every day” is pretty sensible one, and I agree with James Shikwati in the “For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!” inetrview, that giving free/cheap food is a nice thing, but it actually wipes out the local farmers who cannot sell their own crops, and that the solution is not making them more dependent but to help them become independent.

I am lucky, I have a roof over my head, have a nice bed, a car, a good job with good salary, and a family that I know will help me if times get rough. In other words, I am a pretty lucky guy. And if I am this lucky, and can spare 25 or 50 USD for a couple of month, and that helps someone to live a little bit better, then why not?

So I say, go and check out Kiva. Think about it a bit, read about it a bit, and if you think you can take the risk the price of a couple lunch to help someone less fortunate, then go for it.

And become a (n Ad)Venture Capitalist :)