Welcome to SmarterVillage!

We hope you will come along with us on a great adventure.  This project is going to involve lots of people and lots of effort.  The two main characters are Adama Diop from Senegal, currently a student in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Winnipeg in Canada; and Karen Keppler, a teacher at the University of Winnipeg, working on this project as a dissertation.

Adama and Karen were both interested in community development.  After a while, they started chatting on Skype.  Adama was selected to attend a youth conference in Laval, Quebec.  While at the youth conference Adama applied to become a student in Canada.  Karen suggested the University of Winnipeg because of its unique blend of international development and social entrepreneurship into the traditional business curriculum.  Adama began attending the University of Winnipeg in January 2009.

While studying here, Adama will work as an Intern in business incubation, going home in the summers to monitor the SmarterVillage project.  The selected village is Agnam-Goly.  This summer a survey will be conducted to discover who in Agnam-Goly is interested in running a business, and what their individual visions might be for a business.  Pellital, a micro-loan organization, will be available to the entrepreneurs that come forward this coming summer.  Pellital has already funded 6 businesses which SmarterVillage will support.

In this Blog we will keep you up-to-date on the activities of SmarterVillage. We hope you share our experiences.