Microcredit (A Toastmasters speech)

I started going to Toastmasters meetings late last year and since I've gotten through the first two speeches (which were more introductory than anything) I thought that I could post the next ones as I prepare them. At any rate, this is my third speech at the Toastmasters ASC club (in french).


En 1976, dans un petit village nommé Jobra, Mohammed Yunnus donne sont premier microprêt. Une somme d'argent équivalente à 27 dollars et prêtée à 42 femmes du village pour acheter du bambou qu'elles utilisent pour faire des meubles. Ceci est l'atome primordial de ce qui deviendra, officiellement en 1983 la Banque Grameen (ou Banque du village en Bangla).

Ce qui rend l'histoire intéressante est que la Banque Grameen n'est pas simplement qu'une banque qui prête aux moins nantis de la société. La façon de fonctionner de la banque est basée sur son but ultime: augmenter le niveau de vie de ces clients, ce que les règles d'emprunt cherchent à maximiser.


Par exemple, au départ, et toujours maintenant en grande majorité, les emprunteurs sont des femmes. Il s'agit d'un choix qui a été fait car, dans une famille pauvre, celles-ci subviennent aux besoins immédiats de l'unité familiale. L'argent leur permet de s'affranchir et augmente leur confort relatif ainsi que celui de leurs enfants. Ces derniers ont donc, en grandissant, une meilleure change de survie, et une meilleur vie.


Un autre piliers de microprêts de la Banque, et de l'industrie du microprêt en général, et le prêt solidaire. La Banque ne débourse de l'argent qu'à un groupe de femme, d'habitude 5. Celles-ci doivent avoir un projet commun, un rêve commun. Le montant est donné en plusieurs parties à différentes membres du groupe et le montant suivant n'est pas déboursé avant que la première partie ne soit remboursée. L'impact de cela est que les femmes s'entraident pour s'assurer que le projet fonctionne et que les montants soient remboursés. Il est important de noter que le groupe n'est pas responsable du prêt de chacune. Si une personne ne paie pas, les autres membres ne sont pas obligées de payer. La motivation est purement celle de vouloir une meilleure vie dans le futur.


Ceci m'amène à la caractéristique la plus importante de la Banque Grameen: la confiance. La banque n'est pas liée légalement à ses emprunteurs et seule leur motivation et leur honneur leur demande de repayer l'argent qu'elles ont reçu.


Les effets du microcrédit sont biens réels. C'est pour cette raison que Mohammed Yunnus a reçu le prix Nobel de la paix en 2006. L'impact le plus spectaculaire est le fait que, selon la Banque, 50% des emprunteurs ont pu se sortir de la pauvreté extrême (définie comme le fait d'avoir les enfants à l'école, de manger trois repas par jour, d'avoir de l'eau potable, etc.). Pour vous donner une idée du nombre de personnes et de l'impact, sachez qu'entre 2003 et 2007, la Banque est passée de 3.12 millions à 7.34 millions de membres (97% de femmes). La banque a donnée, depuis sa création, plus de 6.55 milliard de dollars en prêts. de ce nombre 5.87 milliard a été repayé.
Il faut noter que la banque est réellement une entreprise profitable. Les prêts ne sont pas des dons et des intérêts, au prix du marché ou plus élevés, doivent être payés. Comme toutes les banques, ce sont les actionnaires qui profitent le plus des activités. Dans ce cas-ci par contre, les actionnaires sont les emprunteurs qui possèdent 94% des parts de la banque (l'autre 6% appartient au gouvernement du Bangladesh).
Même si la banque est basée sur la confiance et non sur le marteau légal, la banque présente actuellement un taux de recouvrement de près de 98%.


En conclusion, il s'agit d'une façon différente de faire des affaires. Une vraie entreprise sociale qui permet à tout le monde de s'enrichir ensemble et d'avancer. J'espère vous avoir donné un aperçu intéressant et un ouverture sur le monde du microcrédit.


I'm using Blogger to write the speeches before speaking so I'll be able to post them here everytime. Obivously, the versions here are a little rough but still, stay tuned for more.

Blogger app

Finally! I can blog on the go!

Welcome back

After a full year, I am starting to post here again! The first change is that I started to use one of those new (or are they? haven`t been here a while) Blogger templates. While I guess they'll be very generic soon, the good thing is this means that there is a mobile site attached.

I haven't yet decided what the breadth of this Survey of Creativity will be but assuredly, there will be business and there will be politics. Stay tuned for more!

Omar Khadr – Child soldier

I’m trying to understand what the problem is in Omar Khadr’s case. He’s currently 23 years old but was caught in Afghanistan 8 years ago. To me, living in 2010, a 15 year old is a minor. It was clear, to me, that a 15 year old soldier was a child soldier and should be treated as such. Furthermore, this was only one of the many problems with the case: potentially inadmissible proof, the treatment of a child as an adult and the whole Guantanamo prison fiasco. But to me, the one clear thing is that he was a child soldier!

 

Legally, it seems to be not so clear. Not only is 15 year old the threshold in many texts but the countries themselves define how to react to another country’s child soldier. The USA might not have been in the wrong in arresting him… but then, he wasn’t treated as a soldier at all. He was treated as a person who killed an American citizen. The problem is that, it should have been one or the other. Either he was a soldier protected under international conventions or not, and given the benefit of doubt until proven guilty.

 

As a Canadian citizen, the government should have pushed to have him stand a fair trial and it is not too late to do so. The government must seem active in this high profile case and show that, at the very least, a Canadian citizen can expect justice. It really pained me to hear Khadr’s lawyer dismiss the judge as against them and saying that it was such a sham that their only hope would be to sway the jury. And, to all people saying that, if he wasn’t a terrorist, 8 years in gitmo would have made him one, while that may be true, it could also be the opposite. Morally, we need to think: Do we want an innocent person in prison (if he is one…)? Even if that made him mad, there are mental institutions for such cases.

3 parents for 1 child

This week,I've heard about legislation in British Columbia that aims at legalizing the idea that a child can have more than two parents. Obviously this is something that might create some technical or legal problems but really, morally, there is no reason to not allow this (as far as I can see anyways).
Are there any reasons as to why we shouldn't have such laws?

Understanding a decision

Important news came on Friday to those working in the pharmaceutical industry in Canada. After the drastic price reduction of generic drugs in Ontario, the Quebec government announced that those prices would also be in effect here.

 

The government expects to save about 164 million yearly and Quebec residents can expect to pay less for their generic drugs. Due to competition, even innovator drugs that have a generic counterpart might see a price drop. This is significant change and is something that seems beneficial to the citizen.

 

From the generic industry’s point of view, however, this is catastrophic. The reduction in the profit margins will be substantial and, frankly, jobs are in danger. I’m part of that industry and I wondered what this meant and how much of an impact that would have on Quebec’s society. Even though most drugs sold are generics, the industry itself accounted for 23 percent of all of the biopharmaceutical industry’s workers. Even though the recent recession probably increased its weight, the fact remains that it was not central to the sector in the province. In fact, the strengthening of the innovator industry against the generics has been key to the development of the strong biopharmaceutical growth in Montreal. At this point, I also want to point out that this strategy meant that qualified people would be retained or come to the Montreal region and that in turn, this would mean that the area would become a prime pool of workers for the generic industry. The end result made Montreal a strong innovator and generic pole. The focus of the provincial government, however, was innovators.

 

With this in mind, we need to go back to March 2010 and the much talked-about Bachand budget. The budget, asking for sacrifices from the general population was, in the early days, very unpopular. Even if the government announced in it that they would do all the heavy lifting, people did not believe them. In the meantime, Ontario was announcing that they would slash the prices of their generic drugs, something much better received by the population. The Liberal government here saw this as an opportunity. It could cut from an obscure and relatively small industry, something that would not have strong repercussions.

 

So we are here. The government saving money and gaining political sympathy at the expense of the generic’s industry. Politically, this seems to be a good move and, as I said before, as a citizen, it means that it’ll cost less to buy drugs (whether it is through taxes or through private insurance). Economically however, I’ll direct you to this Fraser Institute article saying how the price setting done by the Ontario government might have been the problem in the first place, a problem that still remains.

Re-blogging: Homelessness with cameras

A while ago, I posted about the idea of giving cell phones to homeless people. This was following an article about a homeless person snapping a picture of the American First Lady. Well, this week, Change.org posted another article about the subject, looking at what happened in the media after the “incident”.

 

The full story here.

The imperial wisdom of crowds

Earlier today, I received an invite to try a website called Empire Avenue. Similarly to foursquare, it blends entertainment and social media.

 

 

What links it to the title of this post however is the format: It’s a stock market. The book Wisdom of Crowds had a whole chapter on decision markets, talking about the well know stock exchanges (like the Nasdaq) or virtual exchanges like the Hollywood Stock Exchange.

Aside from their value in letting people exchange real or digital commodities they were also extremely useful. Indeed, before the Oscars it was child play to find out who the winners would be simply by looking at the prices at HSX (and yes, it worked even for the so-called upsets).

Coming back the Empire Avenue, it’s a virtual exchange like HSX, only this time, instead of movie stars you trade your online friends. As you gain online influence, your price goes up. The influence in this case is linked to how often people hear about you on the web (twitter, facebook, blog) or how many shares people buy within the game. So far, the community is small and the value, to me at least, is purely entertainment. However, as it grows, the pool of user will hopefully get diverse enough to let us put a real price on the popularity of a particular online entity, whether it be a brand website or a politician.

Speaking of politics, I can see many ways a person could use such a system to engage his constituents and mobilize them for campaigns or the like while getting to know which of the opponents should be feared. At any rate, I started playing with it today, and, if it gets interesting, I’ll keep posting about it. If you feel like you want to try it, they gave me a few invites so you can try e-mailing me and I’ll send you one if I have any left.

Privacy

With Facebook’s move to take over the internet and Google’s taking information from unsecure wi-fi networks, privacy has been in the news quite often lately. It seems that we are moving towards a world where privacy is greatly threatened (Yes, it’s a “Cracked” link).

That may be true that our current definition of privacy is coming to an end. I think it’s impossible for someone in my generation to go to a party and not have every single one of your friends know about it. The truth is that we are making choices that are leading us into a world that is more integrated, where information is readily available but where privacy is diminished. It seems as if we must make a choice between this greater access to data and the ability to keep our secrets.

However, it is our choice on where the boundaries are and we can control on how our data is going to get used.

I’m not taking a stance on what would be better here, but simply stating that we have a choice.

Bringing innovation to the masses

We’ve all seen the jokes on the internet about how much technology would cost you in the past. Obviously, the more powerful devices are getting cheaper as time goes by. A very powerful personal computer could still cost you around $5000, it would just be much faster than what that money could buy 10 years ago. However, with the advent of cheaper chips that are able to do a load of work, we are seeing that new devices themselves are getting cheaper.

 

This week, I came upon a January announcement of Kia’s Uvo system. This is based on Windows embedded technologies and will probably be very similar to Ford’s Sync system.

 

The Kia Optima will feature Uvo

Ford is thus coming to an end of its exclusivity deal with Microsoft. The automotive company now needs to add value to its product in order to keep its competitive edge. And this is what they are doing with the new MyFordTouch which will be, as far as I can tell, the most complete connectivity package ever found in a car. It will bridge everything, from your iPhone to your computer, enabling you to listen to music or having your passengers surf the web.

 

MyFordTouch will debut on the new Ford Focus

 

This brings me to my earlier point. Years before, this type of innovation would first be presented on cars that most people cannot afford. The early adopters would pay for the development costs of an unknown technology. Now, however, this is not new technology but a new application of things we are used too. We know it works, and while there is still a market risk, there are many more people able (and willing) to buy a Ford Focus than a 100K Audi A8.

 

There will still be new devices that will be insanely expensive at first. But we will see in the near future, smart developments of current tech that will be accessible to all.

The internet system (update)

I talked a little while ago about how internet access was important to anyone throughout Canada. Well Saturday, the Canadian government announced a $76.7 million in investment to bring broadband access to rural areas.

This is obviously positive but is not enough. The difference between Canada and most other developed countries is population density. Broadband networks are much more expensive to build here compared the gain a telecommunication company might get from it. What we would need is a true plan of development for our network infrastructures. We need it in order to stay competitive in this decade.

Creativity in a regulated environment

I work in the pharmaceutical industry and often times I hear about how we have a very rigid framework and how, at least on the production side, innovation is very limited. I’m guessing the same is true for the aerospace industry, the dairy industry or well, anything where the government has a say in what ends up in the consumer’s hands.

However, regulations are simply the limits of what you can do. Those guidelines are really the framework of any possible innovation. Indeed, in the quality department, we went from testing endotoxins in rabbits to finding a way to use horseshoe crab serum without even killing them. In the production department, our machines get insanely efficient while being safer than ever, both for the consumer and the operator.

Obviously, bad regulations might stifle innovation. A document saying that you must use a particular technique without giving an overarching rationale will have companies simply and stupidly applying the law. For example, the early interpretation of the 21 CFR Part 11 regulation, which aimed to put the basis of paperless systems within the pharmaceutical industry probably scared quite a few people out of using computers in their business with the FDA, at least for a while. However, when you know the reason, you will try to find better ways to achieve that goal. This is how we went from testing for contamination using century old Pasteur’s techniques to having the rapid microbiology machines.

Another thing that I feel a lot of people in the industry do not understand is that the FDA is on their side (interestingly enough, people outside the industry understand this and maybe take this fact to the other extreme). The first goal of any agency is to ensure the safety of the general public. The second goal of the agency is to insure the survival and the growth of the industry for which it was created. This means that, up to a point, agency will welcome any innovation that the companies make that result in both of their goals being met.

Update on the Project Credit Solidaire

I talked a little bit about the PCS before and I wanted to give a little update as to what is going on. Charles and I have been in talks with a group called DESTA youth network in order to help a team of their teens build a successful business, right here in the heart of Montreal. Our goal within this will be to put them into contact with micro-lenders like you and me, handing out small amounts in order to get enough money for them to run the business. We will update you as we go forward. Stay tuned for more information on the French PCS website (the English website will soon be online).

 

Another thing on the PCS is the first of the entrepreneur series video. This one is with my friend Jean-Pierre Sabe which talks about why he is an entrepreneur (again, this is in French).

 

 

Mandatory hardwired alarms and sprinklers

This weekend, there was a fatal fire in Montreal. The fact is that such events should be easily preventable in our 2010 society. We have so many ways to be connected to the things around us that something with so many warning signs as a fire should have raised alarms and let the inhabitants. It was said that the battery ran out but hardwired alarms exist. They should be relatively inexpensive to retrofit in existing houses, especially if you consider the amount of lives they would save. A push in this regard would go  along way.

In the same vein, mandatory sprinklers in newer constructions should be studied. Again, there is no reason, with the level of technology we have that people still die because an alarm didn’t go off.

Clip by “Le Cerveau”

Interesting clip, good message (In French though… can Google translate audio already?)

 

Le Cerveau - Réflexion feat. Boogat
envoyé par Le-Cerveau. - Clip, interview et concert.

The internet system

Today, the news were that Obama had managed to go through with his reform on Health Care. From our perspective here in Canada it seems like something that was a long time coming. For the past few weeks however, what has caught my attention was the growing support into providing broadband internet access anywhere. In the US, the FCC proposed a national broadband plan, something that would end up as something similar to the construction of the highway system in the past century. This post from Google’s Eric Schmidt pretty much transmits how exciting this plan is.

Obviously this is only for the US, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the strength of the internet in the future will not only be in the information it already contains but in the information that people are bringing in in real-time. For this, having millions more connected will benefit all of us.

With this being said, It’s also good to look at what is going on here in Canada. I think a lot of people will agree that our telecommunications system is a bit lacking. Our cell phone plans cost significantly more than elsewhere and, from my perspective at least, it seems like our CRTC is preventing a lot of innovations from ever finding themselves to this side of the border.

As for an internet plan, the government had announced about a year ago that they would invest to provide access to under-served communities. There doesn’t seem to be a well defined plan although this is a beginning. It should be noted that a broadband plan in Canada is much harder than in the US because of our population density and the huge territory to cover. This being said, if we do not want to create two classes of citizens (connected and unconnected), then we need to act. Because, I think that, very soon, we will not have a choice but to say that internet access IS a fundamental right.

FDA regulation of supplements

 

I haven’t been following US politics much lately so this is why I only recently found out about this issue: a John McCain back bill to have the FDA regulate dietary supplements.

 

This comes after there had been several complaints (even deaths) due to tainted supplements in US. For Senator McCain, i guess the thinking is that a regulatory agency could force supplement companies to implement procedures to ensure the public’s health. It seems however that a lot of people don’t see it that way.

A very vocal group of people opposing this bill states that the goal is the make help pharmaceuticals that feel threaten by the “natural health” industry.

 

Now, I have no doubt that lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry would welcome such a bill, but saying that this would be McCain’s only reason for doing it is ludicrous. I’ve had to deal with the FDA and I can tell you that they are not in bed with pharmaceuticals. What I mean by that is that the agency does not favour a particular company over another. If Pfizer were to make drugs in a basement with no safety precautions whatsoever, the FDA would shut them down immediately. Similarly, a supplement company that follows FDA regulations will not have any problems. What is important however is that the people chosen to enact those regulations know the industry and its customers well. They need to have a good understanding of what is important and what is not to ensure that whoever takes those dietary supplements can do so safely.

 

Back to Canada, we are apparently in the process of regulating this industry. The bill has passed and natural health companies are getting registered (although the complaint here is that this process is very slow). It seems that there aren’t many advocates of no regulation here.

 

To finish, I just wanted to share an argument I’ve heard against regulation. It is the idea that a lot of small natural health companies will not be able to pass the inspections and will have to close, adding to unemployment. Now, if this is true, this shows a problem with the industry since such a statement is similar to saying that food regulations for restaurants are not good because they shut down a dirty diner.

Quote by James Macgregor Burns

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

Governments and CEOs

Last year, I wrote about CEO compensation packages. I didn’t specifically say that governments shouldn’t fix CEO remuneration but the idea was there. What I thought at the time was that a private venture was just that, private, and that the government had nothing to do with it (up to a point).

 

As I was thinking about this however I came to the realization that, for society as a whole, the difference between a CEO raise and an employee raise is not negligible. I just want to point out that, for argument’s sake, I’m considering that 1$ injected in the economy has the same social effect whether it comes from a rich person or a poor(er) person.

 

Now, let’s say you have Company A, that has the possibility of redistributing $1 million dollars to its employees or having this as a raise in remuneration for its CEO. Of course, the decisions are not often that simple but this is to give an example. Assuming that the employees would be going from a 35K yearly income to 40K with this raise, they would get taxed 15% by the federal government here in Canada and around 16% by the Quebec provincial government. This means that each employee would get and extra $3450 of disposable income. Now $1 000 000 in $5 000 slices means that 200 employees got to profit from this. Therefore, a total of $690 000 would get added to the local economy and go through the multiplier effects (again, this is simplified).

 

Looking at the other possibility, for a CEO making over a million dollars a year, the vast majority of his income will fall within the highest taxation bracket. This means 29% from the federal and 24% from the provincial government which leaves the CEO with $470 000 that he’s free to spend.

 

Now, you could argue that the government will spend our taxes to make everyone’s life better but one thing I didn’t include in my calculations was the savings rate. As you get more income, you devote a higher percentage of it to savings. That’s good for the individual, but for society, it is better to have the money circulating as much as possible. This means that the CEO solution will see less money in the hands of the population even if you don’t consider taxes.

 

From the above example however, it’s easy to see which solution the governments likes the most. In the short term, they are making more money with the CEO. The reason governments don’t issue a decree that only CEOs can get raise however is that, in our system at least, CEO votes are supposed to be equal to their employees. And it is the votes, not the money, that keep a government afloat.

 

At any rate, the above example shows that the way remuneration is distributed in the company affects society as a whole. The same way governments issue laws about environment, crime, etc. they have cause to issue laws about remuneration. Now, would a law saying that “CEO remuneration cannot be higher than X” be a good thing? At first glance, I think not. But that is another question…

Singularity quote

When I began writing science fiction in the middle '60s, it seemed very easy to find ideas that took decades to percolate into the cultural consciousness; now the lead time seems more like eighteen months. – Vernor Vinge