IT, Translations & Poverty Alleviation
By Bankers without Borders® Volunteer Jesus Fernandez-Munoz
My name is Jesus Fernandez-Munoz. I am originally from Madrid, Spain and currently live in New York, USA. I found myself wasting hours on the internet and decided to try to make better use of that time - I wanted to find a volunteer initiative.
I work in the banking industry and had the chance to be part of a microfinance project a few years ago, through which I got to know about Grameen. I decided to check their website and discovered an initiative called Bankers without Borders. A project to translate Mifos into Spanish immediately caught my eye: I could use my experience in banking in both English and Spanish speaking countries, together with my interest on languages and the internet to contribute to development.
As a college student I had volunteered on a couple of field projects, but in my current situation that was a bit more challenging. However, this translation project gave me the flexibility I needed: as I had to translate short strings of characters, I could devote sometimes a few minutes, and other times a couple of hours here and there to the project. I am happy to have hopefully helped several microfinance institutions to expand their work in Spanish speaking countries.