The conference I went to last week got me thinking a little bit about crowdsourcing. By a Merriam Webster definition found in a Wikipedia article, “crowdsourcing is the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.”

One of my favorite speakers at the conference was Jessica Jackley . Back in 2005, she founded a company called Kiva, which is a “non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty.”

The concept is a bit hard to understand at first, so if you have time, check out this YouTube video of Jessica’s Ted Talk in 2010.

I was amazed by her story as well as her ability to share her passion for helping others. To be honest, I am not sure if this will inspire me to be a better person or to use the Kiva website to help out someone in need, but I thought I would share the information with you so you can make your own decision.