OUR MISSION

Microfinance does not alleviate poverty. Microfinance helps vulnerable populations overcome financial barriers to access to basic services, such as energy (through green loans), housing, water (water credits), and education, as well as strengthen resilience to climate change.
We believe that microfinance institutions are a powerful vehicle for  sustainable development and have great impact on people. HEDERA helps financial institutions efficiently analyze their clients’ needs and demands in terms of basic services and track their contribution to the SDGs. Sustainable development can only be achieved through the establishment of transparent and insightful indicators. These indicators are multidimensional, not binary. And they capture the needs at the individual household level. This is the only way we can ensure that investments do what they are meant to – help those in need.
We provide digital solutions for data collection,  client-centric assessment, and reporting that combine the most recent software technologies with the latest standard impact measurement methodologies, such as the ESMAP Multi-Tier Framework for access to energy (developed by the World Bank) and the WASH service ladder (developed by the WHO/UNICEF JMP).
The financial gap towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda can only be closed through a multilateral effort of the private and public sectors. Our mission is to enable all stakeholders committed to sustainable development to  measure  their real impact on  all their clients. Our solutions allow institutions to use standard reporting frameworks with minimal training. By facilitating the use of these common languages, we enable all institutions - even the smallest - to evaluate their impact at the triple bottom line, systematize their processes, and communicate their achievements to their impact investors.

TEAM AND CONTRIBUTORS

Natalia
Natalia Realpe Carrillo
CEO & Co-founder
Dania Obert
Dania Obert
Research & project Management support
Angelica
Angélica Lozano
Project and Partnerships Manager
Cecilia
Cecilia Scott
Fundraising Support, Content Development, & Logistics
Vikas
Vikas Lamba
IT & Software Advisory
Felipe
Felipe Burbano
Moodle & Frontend Developer
Mohammed
Mohammed Bentallah
Research Support & Content Development
Alfonso
Alfonso Caiazzo
Co-founder
Researcher at WIAS Berlin
Alfonso
Olivia Nanfuka
Project management support

OUR STORY

The journey of HEDERA Sustainable Solutions (officially incorporated as a GmbH in February 2020) began officially back in August 2017, with our successful application to the Centre for Entrepreneurship  (CfE), the start-up incubator at the Technical University Berlin. With the support of the CfE, the precious advices his director Florian Hoos, and the mentorship of Professor Tetyana Morozyuk, the team was awarded the prestigious EXIST Business Grant (from the German Ministry of Energy and Economics) in October 2018. The EXIST grant allowed us to finalize the first prototype of the  HEDERA Impact Toolkit for energy access assessment, to bring it to market and further develop it through several  pilot projects  in Africa and Latin America. In September 2019, HEDERA was one of the winners in the prestigious Gründerwettberwerb Digitale Innovationen, a German competition funded by BMWi that awards the best digital innovation business ideas (read more here). Since 2020 HEDERA is also supported by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt - DBU) trough the Green StartUp program, a funding program that aims at supporting companies with a strong focus on the connection between sustainability and digitalization, and by the Gründung Innovativ program of the Investititionsbank des Landes Brandenburg (ILB).

HEDERA & RESEARCH

We aim to bridge the gap between academia and the private sector by facilitating collaboration between the two and inter-linking all inclusive finance stakeholders. Since HEDERA’s inception, which entailed translating research results into concrete action on the ground and culminated in the formation of a start-up enterprise, we have believed in the power of research and its importance in the development of our society.

Learn more