microfinance + computers and internet for Chinese farmers

If you haven’t seen them yet, do check out the two-part video documentary, “Broadband for Barefoot Bankers: Zuoquan County” on YouTube, from the European Commission and PlaNetFinance’s “Broadband for Barefoot Bankers” program.  The videos document a process undertaken with poor farming families in Shanxi province wherein already existing local microfinance loan officers  are set up with a computer/Internet system to manage their loans, and also become “technology guides” for the families they serve.  The farmers either get their loan officers to look up the information they need online (say, on livestock diseases), or learn how to do it themselves and then become tech guides for their own small businesses and social networks.

link to videos
link to post on Broadband for Barefoot Bankers in China on the blog worldchanging