The idea of a friend group making loans to its members is not new. Known as a \u201crotating savings and credit association,\u201d or RSCA, the concept is found in many countries, including Chafamo\u2019s Ethiopia, where it\u2019s known as ekub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlmost everyone, including my parents, use ekub to provide liquidity for one another and overcome their poverty,\u201d Chafamo explained to the judges. \u201cEthiopian immigrants and also other immigrants here still use ekub as their primary form of finance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chafamo explained to the judges how it works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cImagine you’re trying to borrow money from a bank to buy an oven, but the bank looks at your very poor credit score and they slap you with a 20 percent interest rate. Then you remember that a lot of your friends have money sitting in their savings account, collecting less than 0.5 percent interest rate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of taking the bank\u2019s usurious rate, \u201cwhy not form a group with your friends and take turns, borrowing and lending money to each other?\u201d Besides helping out a friend, the entire group gets way better rates, both loan and investment, than a bank would offer, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Evaluating the eight pitches this year were alumni judges Emma Sprague \u201910, co-founder of leadership development group Upswing Strategies; Chris Barbin \u201993, founder and CEO of Tercera.io, an investment and advisory firm focused on the third wave of cloud computing; and Ben Schippers \u201904, cofounder of the web and mobile app developer HappyFunCorp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sprague asked Chafamo why, if the lending-circle tradition has been around so long, hasn\u2019t it been made into a mobile or web app before. \u201cOr has it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, it has, said Chafamo, naming LendingClub as a U.S. competitor in the space. But while LendingClub describes itself as a peer-to-peer business, \u201cit\u2019s really not,\u201d he says. \u201cThey provide loans to users sourced from individual investors. My approach is to use the social connections that people already have to allow them to form their own lending groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Barbin, who with Sprague serves on the Bates Board of Trustees<\/a>, praised the vivid sense of purpose behind Chafamo\u2019s app. In a crowded entrepreneurial landscape, people are drawn to mission-driven businesses that have a clear purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe purpose and mission come from your roots and your story. I love that,\u201d he said. \u201cWith purpose- and mission-driven businesses right now, that’s what potential employees will be drawn to when you do start to recruit and scale. That\u2019s very powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year\u2019s student entrepreneurs rose to the challenges of developing pitches during a pandemic year and effectively presenting them on Zoom, said Barbin. \u201cI think we could have easily expected a little bit of a watering down because of the virtual environment. But things just got even better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA huge shoutout to everyone,\u201d added Schippers. \u201cWe saw a lot of work. A lot of practice. Our job was tough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other pitches included a financial consulting firm supporting entrepreneurs of the African diaspora, an app that helps college students organize pickup games and schedule athletic field space, and a media company focused on the outdoor experience through the lens of social justice and the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Presented via Zoom video conference on May 1, the event was seen by friends and family worldwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The judges also awarded two runner-up prizes of $2,500 each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nicole Kumbula ’21, now a newly minted Bates graduate with a major in chemistry, received a runner-up prize for her social-business pitch, Ukama Igasva, focusing on food security and community morale in her grandmother\u2019s home village in Zimbabwe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The name comes from the Shona-language phrase \u201cUkama Igasva unozadziswa nekudya<\/em>,\u201d meaning \u201cRelationships are not complete until they are solidified with a meal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With her funding, Kumbula hopes to bolster and sustain the ownership of cattle in her grandmother\u2019s village, where cattle are valuable not just for household farming and transportation, but in community social rites such as marriage. Her own high school tuition, in fact, was funded by her grandmother\u2019s sale of cattle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe know you could put the money to work immediately and, from a cause standpoint, you would and the community would see a massive impact,\u201d said Schippers. \u201cYou can help unlock the future of your community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Armaan Mecca ’21, a physics major from Chennai, India, pitched Passionfruit, an app that addresses the problem facing up-and-coming musicians: how to monetize their music through streaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cInstead of an artist having to look for listeners, the listeners would come to the artist,\u201d said Mecca. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe problem is especially compounded in India, where there’s only one path to success in the music industry, and that’s going through Bollywood,\u201d says Mecca, who developed the app with cousins Hamza Mecca and Amr Mecca. \u201cIt\u2019s more about who you know and how much money you can spend than how talented you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/06\/Biruk-Chafamo_1848-2.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/06\/Bobcat-Ventures-Group-2021-24.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/06\/equb-big-check-2021-900x421.jpg\")
![\"Nicole](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2021\/05\/210527_Commencement_am_H3A7114_TS.jpg\")