Frustrated with the money politics in the country, Carmina and her cofounder, Melissa Dee, decided to launch InvestEd, a student loan service which prioritizes poor and low-income students. Since launching in 2016, InvestEd has loaned about US$200,000 to 276 students.

Yesterday, that venture was recognized on the global stage when Carmina , an annual international business competition identifying and supporting support women-led, impact-driven businesses.

The event, held on May 2 in San Francisco, California, saw seven out of the 21 international finalists selected to receive a $100,000 grant, one-to-one personalized mentoring, and international networking opportunities to help grow their ventures.

Carmina identified her parents as the inspiration behind InvestEd. 鈥淭hey came from great poverty and worked hard to succeed. When I was young they founded a cooperative in our village that has now grown into a small bank. They taught me from a young age how to save and use money wisely.鈥�

With no credit scoring, many students in the country are shut out of traditional bank loans. Even government loans are hard to secure, since they require proof of income from parents. 鈥淢ost marginalised and unbanked students鈥� parents have informal jobs, they cannot prove their household income.鈥�

To overcome this problem, InvestEd has developed a three-tier platform to select likely candidates, draw investors and ensure repayment. Its proprietary credit-scoring algorithm measures the probability of timely graduation, career success, and non-payment risk, and is reiterated at regular intervals to constantly improve the model.

鈥淏y 2020 we plan to licence it to banks and schools to develop more effective loan programmes,鈥� said Carmina.
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Editor’s note: Additional reporting for this story was sourced from the Cartier Women鈥檚 Initiative site.

Co-initiated by Impact Hub Geneva and the United Nations Development Programme, Accelerate2030 aims to scale up the impact of entrepreneurs working towards positive social and environmental change — in line with the UN鈥檚 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

According to Impact Hub, 鈥渟ustainability starts with the human. We work with leaders of high-impact ventures to develop, test and validate their journey to scale that is sustainable for the individual, the organisation and society as a whole.鈥�

Those accepted into the program can expect to leverage Impact Hub鈥檚 global reach of over two million stakeholders spread over 24 countries to address the local needs of various communities.

鈥淲e build on the local expertise and networks of the Impact Hub network, UNDP and partners to identify and support ventures with high impact potential in emerging and developing markets,鈥� the group said. 鈥淲e bring together ventures with the United Nations, corporations and investors to bring forward win-win collaborations for the achievement of the SDGs.鈥�

Skillful teams with scalable solutions, potential for wider reach, and are currently in their growth stage are invited to apply here. For additional inquiries, you can reach the Impact Hub Manila team here.

The group — consisting of Lakan Hila on lead guitar, Rocky Collado on drums, Dino Pascual on rhythm guitar, and Louie Poco on bass — has made a name for themselves over the past 15 years as a high energy, old school rock and roll band playing classic songs by the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones.

Today, they鈥檙e looking to produce their second album of original music, 鈥淎 Drop Into the Blue鈥�

鈥淲e found ourselves now brimming with a need to express our creativity and have spent the last year and a half recording a new album in between our regular live gigs,鈥� the Bloomfields wrote in their campaign page. 鈥淎s experienced Filipino artists we are excited to contribute our unique voice to an ever growing OPM scene that has been gaining momentum as an influential force on the world stage.鈥�

To crowdfund their new project, the Bloomfields partnered with The Spark Project, a Filipino based crowdfunding platform and community that aims to support and fund creative and social enterprises. With a little more than two weeks left in the campaign, the group has managed to fund over half of their P300,000 target so far.

鈥淭imes are changing, creatives are becoming more enterprising and we need to empower our local artists to continue their craft,鈥� said Patch Dulay, founder of The Spark Project. 鈥淏y supporting their crowdfunding campaign, we not only take part in making The Bloomfields album a reality, we hope to spark possibilities for other artists to do the same.鈥�

According to the band, the money raised from their campaign will cover the mixing and mastering of their new tracks, production of new merch, and the creation of more exciting content for fans, including music videos for some of their new songs.

鈥淲e are looking into crowdfunding to help us get our original music out to a wider audience without having to sign with a major record label,鈥� the Bloomfields said. 鈥淚f our campaign is successful then we can serve as a template for other local bands to fund their music.鈥�

Backers can expect a number of rewards, including a shirts, stickers, custom pomade, and an upcycled cassette tape-turned mp3 player.