Getting back into the swing of life and classes after returning from Dhaka has been interesting, and has included emptying out my rather full Inbox. Although, e-mails have a way of bringing back the trip. Case in point: two Fast Company interviews - one older one with Muhammed Yunus (pre-Nobel prize, even) and a more recent one with C.K. Prahalad.

One of the comments that Dr. Yunus made during our conversation with him, was that technology was going to be the next step in the process of introducing micro-credit and other business opportunities to the impoverished. Prahalad also raises this idea in his book, and the applications are out there already in terms of mobile phone banking. However, Grameen Bank’s model is largely relationship-based and sociological-based. Introducing technology to create efficiency by “eliminating the middle-man” could have very adverse effects in terms of reducing the ties between borrower and lender, as well as between borrowers as resources for each other. Grameen certainly should look at introducing technology, especially on their back-end to increase their own efficiency. Grameen, or BRAC for that matter, should look at their business model as a high-touch service operation, not just a transaction-based financial institution. Technology should help support that strategy, not supplant it.