Position: Program Officer

Location: San Francisco, California

Organization: The Skoll Foundation was established in 1999 by eBay's first president, Jeff Skoll, who serves as our founder and chairman. The foundation's innovative approach to philanthropy is based on the belief that small investments can spur significant social change.  The foundation is focused on social entrepreneurs working six key issue areas - tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, economic and social equity, institutional responsibility, and peace and security.

Description: The Program and Impact team seeks a Program Officer who brings a combination of intellectual curiosity, a passion for social change, a focus on tangible results and a desire to work within a team culture that practices continuous learning and improvement.

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Editor's note: The posts in the "When Being Disruptive is a Good Thing" series were originally published as Guest Posts by Mark Beckford, before he joined NextBillion.net's team as Staff Writer.

In general, the penetration of tech products into emerging markets has not made a significant impact in closing the digital divide, even with higher overall growth rates than typically found in mature market countries (the mobile phone being the exception).   Some argue it is the lack of one or more of the "disruptive" product attributes (affordability, ease of use, value).  Maybe. 

Again, looking just at PC affordability specifically, there have been a multitude of ventures that have aimed to close the PC divide by delivering very cheap, and sometimes free, computers.  None of these ventures have taken off in a large scale, at least those that I am aware of.  Please point me to any that are successful (e.g., that have shipped millions of units in at least 5 or more countries on different continents).  

I think the key is that the business model strategy is often given a lower priority than product development.   

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ACCION International has been instrumental in the rise and mainstreaming of microfinance as a key component of bottom-up approaches to poverty alleviation. It has played a key role in promoting thriving organizations that are bringing financial services to the poor.

Under the leadership of prominent figures like Maria Otero and Michael Chu, ACCION has built an impressive portfolio partners that they are often trendsetters in their countries. Take Bancosol, for instance, a central player in the rise of the increasingly efficient and competitive Bolivian microfinance industry. The same can be said about Peru's Mibanco and, naturally, Mexico's Compartamos, whose groundbreaking incursion into the capital markets has been widely commented here in Nextbillion.net.

Such an impressive track record provides a remarkable platform to draw lessons learned, identify key trends and factors of success in the purpose of extending high quality financial services to the poor. Thus I was pleased to learn about the launch of the Center for Financial Inclusion, its latest venture. The center will bring together private sector, non-profit and academic expertise to advance the dialogue around and implementation of innovative practices in three key areas: consumer protection in microfinance, product innovation and microfinance investment.

I encourage you to visit the Center's website and learn more about this promising initiative. Moreover, if you are around, register for the launch of the center next Tuesday by e-mailing center@accion.org. If you are not in DC but want to join and follow a vibrant and fresh conversation about microfinance and the issues listed above, here are two suggestions: bookmark their website and add its new blog to your RSS feeds.

Best of luck to the team on board of this new and exciting initiative. We look forward to joining the conversation and seeing how it translates into increased activity in the development through enterprise space.