In 1997 a couple colleagues and I took a whirlwind tour of India in my role as Microsoft's vice president of human resources. We were impressed with the quality of our Indian software developers in Redmond and concluded the time had come to create a development center in India, staffed and managed by Indians. Our assignment was to select a city for a new Microsoft India Development Center.

We were given the red carpet treatment wherever we went. Chief ministers, university presidents, CEOs of Indian software companies -- they all courted us with great enthusiasm. When the dust settled, we chose Hyderabad in the state of Andrah Pradesh as the site of the new development center.

One of our Redmond-based employees, who was born and reared in India, enthusiastically volunteered to move back to India in the role of general manager. He remains in this job today and has built a terrific organization.

In 1999, I left Microsoft to devote my time and resources to the issue of world poverty. Recently I returned to India, this time in my role as co-founder and chairman of Redmond-based Unitus, (pronounced Unite Us) the world's first microfinance accelerator. Working in developing countries, we carefully select high-quality microfinance organizations that have the potential for explosive growth. We then structure a multi-year investment package that will catalyze the growth.

At a minimum, we hope eventually to serve at least 100,000 women with microcredit loans wherever we work.

On this trip, my wife and I found ourselves sitting on the ground in a rural village an hour drive north of Hyderabad. We were watching 40 village women make their weekly repayments on their small microcredit loans. These loans, often no more than $100, are used to buy inventory and supplies for their one-person businesses. Some women use the money to purchase a water buffalo whose milk is then sold to the villagers. Others purchased goats for future butchering and resale.

These loans, often no more than $100, are used to buy inventory and supplies for their one-person businesses.

The women, sitting in a large, orderly circle, were colorfully dressed in traditional saris. The loan officer from Swayam Krishi Sangum, a microfinance lending institution headquartered in Hyderabad, carefully collected the rupees from each woman and recorded each repayment in his bankbook.

This group of women is but one of more than 300 such village groups organized by SKS. More than 12,000 women currently benefit from SKS's financial services.

Once all the payments were received and recorded, we had a conversation with the women, utilizing the translation services of Vikram Akula, founder and CEO of SKS. We asked numerous questions regarding size of their families, nature of their self-employment activities and so on. We asked how many of the women could read. None of them can read; they are all illiterate.

Then we asked the following question: "Have you ever seen a white-skinned person?"

They all shook their heads in a negative way, indicating that we were the first Caucasians they had ever seen.

"Where are you from?" one asked.

"We are from America," we responded.

"Is that another state in India?" she asked.

These women had never heard of America. They had never heard of George W. Bush or Osama bin Laden. But more important, they live their lives completely uninfluenced by our culture, our politics, our religions and our expectations. This is not all good; nor is it all bad.

The biggest challenge, as I saw it, is for the women to gain enough income from their self-employment activities to allow their children to gain an education.

Eventually even this village will be brought into the ever-globalized world. But before the doors open, might we spend a few moments contemplating what it is we want to share with them. Do they need basic drugs or VW bugs? Small loans or new cell phones? Microwaves or plasma displays? MTV or democracy?

From where I sat on the ground that day, it was my view that their incremental needs were basic, but important. They need more food with better nutritional value so their children will be healthy. They need basic medications and inoculations for their children and themselves.

The biggest challenge, as I saw it, is for the women to gain enough income from their self-employment activities to allow their children to gain an education.

And in so doing the next generation will be able to meet and greet the globalized world when it enters the village gates.

It is for this reason that supporting well-run microfinance institutions in developing countries is one of the best ways that Americans can begin bridging the gap between our lives and those of in the zip code-challenged corners of the world.

Microfinance programs work from the bottom up. The funds go directly to the hard-working self-employed women. There is no government intervention and real results are achieved in your lifetime.

Sitting on the ground in a rural Indian village, I was once again impressed that this is a methodology that works.




Contributed by, Mike Murray, chairman of Unitus.

To read another Global Envision article about Unitus see Unitus Makes $1.9 Million Microfinance Investment in Pro Mujer.