Kiva World, one of the earliest and most coveted Kiva Apps, was created by a team of developers in Northern Italy. The company is called Wonsys S.r.l. and was founded by Simone Dall’Angelo, Michele Finotto and Matteo Nodari. And although I tried to convince Kiva to send me there for this interview, I settled on a few email exchanges.

Kiva World is a user-friendly google maps mashup of real time loans on Kiva. The Wonsys team describes it best:  “It’s nice to have a glance at world map and see what’s happening, who need money, who’s working to repay their loan, etc. It really helps to give a sense of what’s going on at Kiva, because it’s ok to look at a list of entrepreneurs on the Kiva website, but seeing them spread out on the map makes it a tad more impressive, because you know you’re helping a lot of people around the globe.”

The Wonsys Team having fun in Roma

The team has been using Kiva to make loans for years.  And as soon as the API was introduced, they jumped on the opportunity to build something to help spread the word about Kiva.

We think everyone should use Kiva, because you don’t need much money to start making a difference.  So we would like to help spread the word about Kiva and help you reach as many people as possible.

When I asked them about plans for the future,  they hinted at a new product idea they’d like to work on in the future.  In the meantime, we can all look forward to a Kiva World companion site that will be launching soon.

About Wonsys S.r.l.:

Wonysys was founded in 2006, by a small team of developers and computer consultants with offices in Milano and Bergamo.  Wonsys believes in building efficient and usable products custom tailored to clients’ needs.  Wonsys deems a constant two-way dialog with clients of utmost importance in order to create a successful product day after day.

The Wonsys team is always on top of new technology, which allows them to offer clients a wide range of alternatives to build the finest product in the shortest time possible.

If you need Ruby on rails engineers, you can contact Wonsys directly.

Kiva Ads is a nifty tool that allows you to customize ads to embed into your website.  For example, a woman’s organization promoting health in Africa can now make ads to promote borrowers that align with their mission.  You can sort by gender, loan status, sector, and region:

Then you are given the code to a dynamic, rotating ad that sorts through entrepreneurs according to your criteria:

According to the developer, Rajat Mittal, the main audience of this app “are people who are gung-ho to get someone funded. It is also particularly useful for Kiva field partners who want to showcase and promote their own loans on their website,blog etc.”

We got a chance to to interview Rajat and learn more about his work on the Kiva API.

Tell us about yourself.

I am a master’s student at the Department of Computer Science, ASU with a background in Information and Communication Technology. I am interested in using technology for a social cause and in creating ideas centered around utilising the universal nature of the web. My hobbies are brainstorming new ideas, travel and photography.

How did you get involved with developing apps for Kiva?

I have been a big fan of Kiva as a concept and I admire the idea of using technology to help entrepreneurs. After I saw the Kiva API and the fact that it recently launched, I thought I could contribute to the idea. My first app was a simple google maps mashup showcasing recent loans on Kiva on a map.

What do you think about Kiva extending loans to entrepreneurs in the US? Would you loan to someone in the US?

Extending loans to entrepreneurs in the US is great. My google maps mashup helped me understand that loans usually dont come from US. We can now think of applications which are more region specific and can easily test their utility using the data related to US. More coverage of MFI’s is required to truly understand and harness the potential of the concept.

What are your plans for the future?

I am brainstorming on a few more ideas on top of Kiva Platform these days. Ideas that change the model of searching loans on Kiva. At the same time, I hope to maintain the PHP wrapper I wrote to acess the Kiva API called PhpKiva by keeping it updated with the API.

Kiva Data is a handy set of charts taking a macro look at Kiva’s micro loans.   A look at the heat map of loans by country reveal that Peru and Cambodia have the highest amount of loans, with 11,814 and 10,569 respectively.

Kiva Data also looks at top uses for loans, analyzing free-text of borrower profiles. Among top phrases, TO BUY A COW appears 136 times.  And 109 borrowers will “USE THE MONEY TO DIVERSIFY AND EXPAND MY BUSINESS”.

Other interesting charts are Borrower Gender, Minutes Between Posted Date & Funded Date, Loan Size, and more.

I got a chance to speak with Jon Heller, hacker of Kiva Data:

Tell us about yourself.
I’m a 30 year old database developer and I live in Durham, NC, with my wife Lisa. My main hobby now is trying to do something cool with the Kiva API.

How did you get involved with developing apps for Kiva?
I’ve been a lender and a big fan of Kiva for a while, and as soon as my wife told me about the API I started planning ways to use it.

Tell us about the product you built- who should use it? How is it useful?
Kiva Data explores and visualizes the data from Kiva. It’s a collection of trends and statistics that I think are cool, but I’m not sure if it will be useful to anyone.

What are your plans for the future? Do you have any other products you’d like to launch on Kiva?
First I plan to continue exploring all the available data, such as lenders, teams, etc. There are a few areas where I may try to get more in-depth, such as finding out what makes some loans more successful than others. Eventually I want to make my site more interactive, and provide direct access to a database of all the information. Also, I’d like to collaborate with other people on their projects, so if anyone has some specific data requirements send me an email [jonearles (at) yahoo (dot) com] and I might be able to help you out.