IBM and CARE to Streamline Microfinance in Africa through Grid Technology

IBM, a multinational computer technology corporation, recently announced in a press release that it plans to partner with CARE, a leading private international humanitarian organization, to jointly establish the Africa Financial Grid, an integrated data processing infrastructure that will curb costs currently incurred by microfinance institutions (MFIs) in providing financial services in Sub-Saharan Africa. The idea of the “Grid” was originally conceived and articulated by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman in 1997, who defined the Grid as “a hardware and software infrastructure that provides dependable, consistent, pervasive, and inexpensive access to high-end computational capabilities”. According to IBM, it is a single, unified data infrastructure in which disparate resources are integrated and virtualized to facilitate asset sharing. Within the financial industry, grid computing enables companies to standardize existing analytic infrastructure, conduct large-scale analyses more efficiently, and achieve near real-time decision-making. Essentially, programs are able to run optimally without limitations imposed by server capacity or access to data. Image source: microlinks.org. > Continue.

News selected by Covalence | Region: Africa | Company: IBM | Source: Microcapital