Jun
05
One of the challenges as the CTO of Micro Energy Credits is building from the ground up with minimal resources. This is a challenge nearly all start ups face, but is perhaps even more pronounced in this phase of development.
Each decision to invest in a software development effort starts with the question, can we find something off the shelf? and what is the level of effort that makes sense given the expected benefit within the next 9-12 months? By bounding the effort in terms of effort and cost, we ensure that requirements for that particular technology system stays within reason. This inevitably creates a conversation with the rest of the management about the trade-offs and thus leads to a process for setting priorities. This is not unique, really, I credit the folks of 37signals in their publication “Getting Real” with a good articulation of how to ensure strong alignment of information technology systems with the current phase of development. Its really a variation of “doing what matters”.
And, we try to learn by our mistakes. In the early stages of the project we went a little “over the top” with the requirement for scalability. We decided to engineer our solution to be highly scalable by using the emerging technology of cloud computing (Amazon’s EC2), which also allowed us to be charged on a “pay as you go” model. This made a lot of sense at the time, but we failed to realize the complexity involved in doing this, which led to some unanticipated costs. So, after paying for this for several months, we realized this was overkill for our current level of development and while keeping the configuration on ice, we effectively killed that account. I’m confident this wasn’t wasted effort, as it illustrated how to make better near term decisions, and gives us a foot in the cloud computing door, should we need that.
Doing more with less is actually a terrific discipline, at least in retrospect. 
May
04
MicroEnergy Credits launched in May at two conferences in Africa. The first was the Lighting Africa Conference in Accra, Ghana. MEC and EcoSecurities presented jointly in the vendor’s hall. In the picture I am standing next to Aaron Senanu, the charismatic and dynamic project manager for Africa at EcoSecurities. Since the beginning the whole team at EcoSecurities have been incredible partners, grasping the vision, providing needed marketing support and technical support in valuation of the offsets. We’ve met dozens of manufacturers and distributors of innovative clean-tech technologies for the bottom of the pyramid. Many of these manufacturers are quite amenable to working with Microfinance Institutions to bring their products to microenterprise clients. As we build up our network of MFIs, we will increasingly link them to these vendors of innovative clean technology products.
Apr
20
MicroEnergy Credits (MEC) is a social enterprise that enables Microfinance Institutions to receive revenues from the Carbon Markets when they lend for clean energy technologies such as improved cookstoves, solar home systems and biogas digesters. MEC was incorporated in 2007, and launched in May of 2008 after winning first place in the Global Social Venture Business Plan Competition.
MicroEnergy Credits has partnered with EcoSecurities to provide a unique carbon finance option for microfinance institutions with no minimum project size and no upfront transaction costs. MicroEnergy Credits also provides implementation services to help MFIs rapidly scale up their clean energy product lines.
MEC provides the handshake between the carbon markets and the microfinance industry by automating the monitoring and tracking of carbon offsets using a mobile phone- and gps-based web technology. Building on existing Microfinance loan monitoring processes provides unprecedented transparency into the validity of the carbon offset projects. This creates carbon credits that are both investment grade, and demonstrate tangible social benefits.
MEC’s vision is that getting on a clean energy path with become an integral step of every microentrepreneur’s journey out of poverty.
