I recently came across a Forbes Op-Ed Piece, “The US is a Very Entrepreneurial Economy: It Just Doesn’t Have Many Entrepreneurs” by Tim Worstall. Based on the numbers, the US has fewer startups, fewer small businesses, and fewer one-man businesses than in Europe. While the US has many more, what he dubs, “’innovative entrepreneurs’”, those who introduce a new product to change the world, the US falls far behind in self-employment.

Yet, burgeoning entrepreneurs walk into Grameen America's doors every day.

The US has an abundance of entrepreneurs whom lack the financial resources to bring their ideas to market. With over 50 million people in the US unbanked or underbanked, access to startup capital is a socio-economic privilege.

Maybe not all Grameen America clients have the vision and skills to become an “innovative entrepreneur”, but with greater financial inclusion, they just might surprise you!

On my subway ride to work the other, I came across a NYTimes article, "Pictured: A World at 7 Billion",a visual time capsule with hundreds of photographs. I was fascinated. The time capsule is to be opened in twenty years, when children born today can look back at what the world looked like when they were born. This one was my favorite, perhaps that’s because I lived in Senegal for two years, so it has a special place in 

my heart. 

Working here, my days are focused on strategies for poverty alleviation in the United States; therefore my thoughts naturally drifted towards a conversation in 2031 telling 20 year-olds what poverty was like here when they were born.  My sphere of influence, my Grameen America team, my microfinance colleagues, my public health peers, and beyond is collectively and effectively shifting the poverty paradigm.  I can’t wait to see the expression on the faces of the next generation when we describe poverty,which for them should be a distant phenomenon.

“One day our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like." Professor Muhammad Yunus

By Katherine