The Autodesk Foundation supports the design and creation of innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. Like all Autodesk employees, they believe design can change the world, but the Foundation goes the extra mile to champion organizations taking on humanity’s biggest challenges. One such challenge is poverty.
Last week, the Autodesk Foundation hosted Anushka Ratnayake. I was fortunate enough to meet her. Here is her story.
Anushka began her career in international development at Kiva.org where she learned about the power of microfinance to impact poverty. In 2008, she joined One Acre Fund and moved to Kenya where her job was to develop a repayment process for smallholder farmers on their microloans. As part of her work, she saw that farmers needed a savings model instead of credit.
Seeds and fertilizer are two of the biggest costs in a smallholder farmer’s life, but they are sold differently than any other product. Whereas a…