Kapilananda Mondal has been promoting microfinance and community development in villages through West Bengal since 1983.

He will speak Sept. 12 at 5pm at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village.

Moving beyond traditional approaches to microfinance, Mondal has introduced microbanking to villagers based on his belief that rural areas can generate investment capital from within their own communities. His approach has spread to hundreds of villages and has caught the attention of microfinance practitioners from around the world.

Partnering with READ Global, he launched the Oceanic Library in the village of Ullon in West Bengal in 2008; the library has became the centerpiece for a village transformation.