BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:1.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Social Lending: A Pannel Discussion
DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:"Social Lending: A Pannel Discussion" MIT Club of Northern California. Before banks even existed, getting a loan meant going through the  
original social network: friends and family. Access to sufficient  
capital was a big problem. If friends and family are poor, then  
starting a business was difficult. With Web 2.0, a person's social  
network has a much larger and global reach: A third-world  
entrepreneur can get the capital to start a business, or, a recent  
college graduate can refinance their credit card debt to a much lower  
interest rate than what the bank offers. VCs have taken note of this  
trend:  Prosper has already received $40M of investment, Lending  
Club, which got its start as a Facebook application, had a $10M round  
of funding this year, and CircleLending was just recently acquired by  
Virgin.  Compared to the overall lending market, these amounts are  
quite small, but they may also be the first drops in a torrent to come. See http://www.mitcnc.org/Events_Single.asp?eventID=1365
DTSTART:20071205T183000
DTEND:20071205T193000
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR