Seeds, the Mobile Game That Drives Microcredit

Sociopreneurship or entrepreneurship that aims to also provide social benefits to others seems to be popping up more and more recently. Even in fields that previously might not have been thought of to be able to provide social benefits to the community, several sociopreneurship entities began to emerge. One of them is a mobile game which aims to encourage microcredit, Seeds.

Seeds was first initiated by Rachel Cook who claimed to be interested in micro-credit schemes. Cook finally made a documentary called The Microlending Film Project which discussed microcredit. It was in the making of this documentary that Cook then got the idea to make game Seeds.

Ranges it was originally just a concept that Cook called "the meeting between Farmville and Kiva." Seeds allows users to build virtual worlds for plant-like creatures called Seedlings to live in. As is common in games like Farmville, users can also buy virtual items to help build their virtual world. The difference is that the money that users spend to buy virtual goods will then be fully used to provide micro-enterprise loans to women entrepreneurs in Kenya.

To the Entrepreneur.com website, Cook said that the average Kenya microenterprise only requires a $120 loan. Thus, the provision of microcredit from game Seeds are very likely to occur because per unit loan does not require a large amount. Meanwhile, Seeds benefit from the interest on the loan. The following is a schematic overview of how the money spent by Seeds players can be accessed by borrowers in Kenya.

Still according to Cook, the average bank in Kenya offers interest in the range of 26% for borrowers. Seeds charge an interest rate of around 13% only. Cook also stated that with a business model like this, Seeds only make relatively little profit.

Seeds first rolled out via crowdfunding site foundable and received funding of more than 24 thousand US dollars. After a year of development, Seeds is now available for download on the App Store.

Sumber: Entrepreneur.com.