Come on you geeks, techies, and tech companies ...

We who operate in the Third World and the Developing countries would kindly, no most kindly and deeply, appreciate your assistance in any which way you can ...

• More than cash, we need access to your products, services, your technical assistance, and to leverage your relationships with vendors in the countries where we operate.

If you can help, I will be the first to wave your flag here and with whoever I meet.

To-date my heartfelt thanks goes to IBM and Microsoft. And I am sure that they could and would help even more. So that leaves a whole lot of companies to thank.

Oracle and Qualcomm are hopefully close to offer some assistance ... keeping my fingers crossed.

So come on you geeks, techies, and senior management ... Just remember, a farmer sows many, many seeds (knowing that not all will germinate) so as to ensure that he/she can reap a bumper harvest ... Bear in mind that these countries have potentially millions and millions of customers to offer ... some of them could be your future customer.

So Help Us to Help Them so that some of them in the future can grow to Help You Achieve your financial targets.

I will gladly add your name to the list above.

Next time ... will touch on what and how we use technology.

Who is FINCA???

This is the start of my blogging endeavors ...

Our mission ... is to provide financial services to the world's lowest-income entrepreneurs so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living.

Our vision ... is to become the leading global microfinance institution by providing financial services to more than one million clients annually, while operating with the highest commercial principles of performance, transparency and sustainability.

The sooner that we can hit that milestone the better, for then we want to reach the next million, and the next million and the next, and the next ... those in need are in dire need!!! So, soon, sooner, soonest only makes urgent sense.

We operate in the following 21 countries ...

• Africa - Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda & Zambia
• Latin America - Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico & Nicaragua
• Eurasia - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Russia & Tajikistan
• Greater Middle East - Afghanistan & Jordan

I have had the privilege of visiting 17 of these countries. They are really rich in history, full of beauty (each in its own unique way), rife with poverty, and yet the people have the humanity that is infectious, heart warming and equally embarassing. Why embarassing? It is embarassing for the likes of us from the so-called modern, progressive, capitalist world of the west for we have lost touch with that humanity that these people so lovingly exude even when they have so little; and they willingly share what little they have.