Written January 23, 2012
Beloved slacker classmates, I am writing to chastise you for not sending me class notes. SHAME ON YOU. Fortunately, you’re cute, so I am going to let it slide. Do not expect this kind of forgiveness when we are old and shriveled. Then, you have to send me lengthy updates. You have been warned.
Despite my clever request for class notes, I only received one update that was not the product of coercion. *Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (www.alexwg.org) is spared the wrath of shaming because he was elected to the Philosophical Society of Washington and granted U.S. Patent 8,073,864. Congratulations Alex!
Now, onto the rest of you. SHAME!
I will do my best to salvage the situation by telling you all about the alums I have seen the last few months. Last week, I went to the San Francisco Toast to IAP where I saw *Reshma Khilnani, *Teresa Zhang, *John Miyagi, *Rick Sheridan, and *Murali Vajapeyam. I pleaded for class notes, and some of them offered to pretend to be having a baby for the sake of class notes continuity, but I do have a small amount of journalistic integrity, a very small amount, so we will not fabricate pregnancies this time.
We decided to call up *Brett Lockyer because we heard he had some news. After hearing our voicemail/demand, Brett wrote in to share that he was recently engaged to his girlfriend of two years, Janine Baer. They met at a birthday party, and their instant connection flourished to become the healthy, comfortable relationship they now share. Their late summer wedding will be in beautiful Sonoma, California. Congratulations Brett! You are partially spared from the public shaming described above.
*Rick Sheridan also sent me an official update after seeing how forlorn I was at the Toast to IAP. Rick wrote, despite the economic difficulty, he’s decided to give the fruitless job search a rest, counts his blessings that Silicon Valley has reached his family doorstep, yielding a strategic foothold from which to unleash his nefarious projects upon the distracted and unsuspecting populace. Rick is requesting designers familiar with pastels. I would like to note that nefarious projects rarely come in pastel colors. Rick is either off track or he is a true evil genius.
The weekend after the Toast to IAP, I went to *Alison Wong’s birthday party. After a tasty brunch, we visited a beekeeper and harvested a bucket of honey. Alison, *Reshma Khilani, and I looked very stylish in the beekeeping suits.
I learned that if you want to relocate a bee hive, you have to move it at least 3 miles or the bees won’t be able to find their way back to the hive. You don’t need to check that on Wikipedia. That information comes straight from a beekeeper who was wearing overalls, so it is true.
Back in December I saw *Diana (Bolton) Welmerink in Reno (also known as the greatest place on Earth). Diana will be moving to Reno this summer when her husband, Adam, finishes his orthodontic residency. Hooray! Now, if the rest of you would please move to Reno, I will hurry back from San Francisco.
I also had dinner with *Kristen Quinn in December in San Francisco. I think we shared Brussels sprouts. I might be wrong. I’ve had Brussels sprouts with a lot of people lately. I don’t want to cheapen my experience with Kristen, which was delightful, but I may not be keeping my vegetables straight.
I had lunch with *Will DelHagen in December. Will is hard at work starting a company, and he is contemplating when the optimal time is to add a puppy to the payroll. I saw Will again at an MIT10 event where we also saw *Eric Varady. Eric does super angel investing, and I asked him hard-nosed questions like whether he gets to wear a cape to work. He said no, but we all know he was being coy, and the answer is yes.
Who else? *Joanne Chang came to visit me and Cat Ng ‘01 in November. Joanne recently moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota with her husband, Dan the Man Kwan, and she is recruiting for more MIT alums to join her. While in San Francisco, Cat, Joanne, and I went to the warehouse filled with trampolines known as the House of Air and we tried on wedding dresses for fun. Tragically, Cat and Joanne both married other people, so I cannot marry either of them. Jerks.
While Joanne was visiting, Gina Bassi* was also visiting for Thanksgiving, and her family had a birthday party for her, which *Teresa Zhang, *Reshma Khilnani, Joanne, and I attended. Gina’s family is tons of fun, and they had an M&M birthday cake for her, which makes any party a success.
I think that covers it. You people better shape up next time and send me updates. Alternatively, each and every one of you who lives in the Bay Area is going to have to line up something fun to do with me.
Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary, ktappan@alum.mit.edu
1. How did you get involved working with Kiva (www.kiva.org)?
By 2008, I had been with Bank of America for about four years. I’m not sure if it was a quarter-life crisis or just being antsy, but I felt compelled to do something different. I had been interested in microfinance for a while; it staggers me that three billion people do not have access to loans, savings or insurance. The opportunity to take a year off and spend time at Kiva was a great way to help contribute to the microfinance movement.
Kiva.org allows everyday people to make microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. The scalability of Kiva was intriguing. In a given week, 40,000 online users make, on average, a $50 microloan, which equates to 2 million dollars being lent weekly to entrepreneurs!
Back at MIT, I did something similar when I took a year off to do service with the organization DoSomething.org after our freshman year. I probably learned more during that year working for the non-profit than in the other three years at MIT. That was a powerful life lesson.
2. What was your role at Kiva?
Since Kiva was a small non-profit, it never had an opportunity to mine through its data to see if it could gain insights to help impact more borrowers. I was able to parse out information from the data and worked with the management team to implement new strategies. For example, in lending statistics, are people more or less likely to lend to a woman in Asia or a man in Africa? (Interestingly, women in Asia get funded 2.5 times faster.) Our team was able to use that data to identify profiles that would be attractive candidates for lending. Another example, if the borrower sent an update to the lender with their business progress, the lender was three times more likely to lend to a new borrower.
We also started using marketing tools such as Google AdWords and Facebook ads, and through the use of analytics, we were able to better optimize click throughs.
3. What were some highlights of your time working with Kiva?
It was easy to get up caught up in the analytical side of Kiva, so it was good to work with the borrowers to keep in touch with the human aspect and stay grounded with the cause. One memorable project was when a borrower in Kenya wanted us to videotape him so he could express his gratitude to the lenders.
He said, “Last week was one of the first times I have ever used the Internet, so I decided to Google my own name. I was shocked when I saw my name come up on Kiva’s website. I could not believe that people from around the world had given me a loan to help me purchase my goat!!! I’m so thankful for the loan and plan to repay it!!!”
I was touched by the humbleness and thankfulness of this borrower in receiving his loan. At the same time, watching someone use technology for the first time to Google his name was incredible – especially when I remembered I did the same thing when I learned about Google! No matter where you are, people are people. The world is really big, but it is also very interconnected.
4. What were the biggest challenges working for Kiva and making the switch from the corporate world?
It was very different going from being a small cog at Bank of America and heading to a small organization like Kiva where you wear a lot of hats. I arrived at Kiva when it had 35 employees. I wanted to do everything I could to help the organization, and there was always so much to do. It often felt like juggling 100 different tasks, and at the end of the day realizing I couldn’t possibly finish every task.
5. What could MIT alums do to give back to their communities?
It’s not always possible for people to dedicate a year of service, but I know a lot of people are interested in giving back. What I see happen frequently is that a person waits for the perfect opportunity to serve, but the perfect project does not come up and all of a sudden a year passes by.
My advice would be to dive in today and get involved with just one thing – once a week or once a month for six months. As long as you can get your foot in the door, it makes it a lot easier to network and find a volunteer opportunity that may be a better fit.
6. What’s next for you in your volunteering/philanthropic life?
I have noticed a pattern that every four years I take a year off from my job to serve. I’m not sure if I will be jumping back soon, but I would like to do things on the side. While I still do one off things for Kiva, I am inspired by the web’s ability to scale impact. I am currently looking at projects that combine the web and education.
