This regular blog series will shine the light on some of our top Specialists. Not only do we want to recognize them for their accomplishments, we want others to learn from the approach they’ve taken to promote and implement Mifos.
Mifos Specialists are one of the most crucial links in our community – they are the driving force that is promoting and supporting Mifos worldwide. Aside from championing our product and bringing the Mifos technology to new markets, they act as the fundamental bridge feeding in MFI requirements to be developed by the community. Specialists don’t stop there as many are also developing and localizing the product to fit their local market. For all these reasons, COSM is focusing it energy on making these Specialists successful – they are the primary channel to market, the eyes and ears on the ground, and the entrepreneurial force that will help us sustainably scale.
Hugo Technologies
Hugo Technologies is a relatively new entrant to the Mifos community but they’re not new to the microfinance space as one of the first technology vendors supporting microfinance in its infancy in India.
Hugo means “Bright in Mind and Spirit” or “intelligence” – they are committed to deliver innovative and cost effective solutions via the help of global community open source products. Hugo is based in Hyderabad focusing on agile Java development, enterprise systems implementation, and open source consulting. Their principal, Shiva, has extensive experience supporting technology for microfinance dating back to 1997 when the sector was just getting off the ground in India. They deployed, developed, and supported solutions for more than a decade. For the past 8 years, they were away from the sector deploying systems throughout India, Asia, and Africa. Seeing that microfinance has grown significantly yet still faces the same challenges, they decided to return and form Hugo Technologies.
Immediate and Lasting Impact
Hugo Technologies only joined the Mifos community in August 2011 but have made a long-lasting mark with their extensive knowledge of microfinance business processes and their many contacts across the sector. Their first customer they brought on was Rudrama Macs serving 18,000 clients. They have since deployed Mifos at RR Macs serving 4,000 clients are close to bringing on several other customers from their pipeline of more than a dozen opportunities.
Hugo has been a good proof point of unlocking the virtuous cycle – their development team has immersed themselves in the platform to improve it for their customers and the community at large. Their team completed the Telugu translation for Mifos, contributed enhancements to the core collection sheet module, are optimizing SunGard’s data migration toolkit, and are working on a number of other modules including an offline client and automated follow-up call processing. They are active open source community participants, regularly answering questions and contributing user requirements and suggestions to improve the product. Perhaps there biggest contribution to date has been leading the development of the simple integrated accounting module – Mifos-ACC. Sponsored with funding by FinA, along with Conflux, they’ve built support for basic general ledger voucher entry and simple financial reporting in Mifos.
A Global Push
Hugo not only has the potential to support large and growing customers throughout India – they’ve gone global. Hugo recognizes and is ready to fulfill the demand for Mifos across the globe. Building off its past expertise in other markets, they’ve partnered with colleagues in other markets to open up offices to offer local Mifos support in:
- Tanzania for the South and East African markets
- Ghana for the West African market
- Nigeria
- Mexico for the Central and South American markets
- Philippines serving Southeast Asia
For MFIs in these regions seeking to get on board the Mifos platform, get in touch with Hugo to learn about their services available.
