Sunday Seven 8-14-11

1. This article about biogas in Nepal was sent to me by a friend. I found this part especially interesting:

That leaves families with a $384 gap--and that's where things get interesting. Interest rates charged by the local banks are too high and require collateral. So we created microfinance institutions at the community level and established a revolving fund for the project that provides a soft loan at an interest rate of 8% (almost one-third of the general bank rates) with a duration of two years. The repayment rate is 99%.

It reminds me of a website I heard about where you can loan money to people in third world countries to help them start up their business...I can't remember the name of it....