Inclusion into a market economy is a crucial component of economic welfare, and large portions of the populations in the US and developing countries lack productive access to markets (such as banking, insurance, healthcare), mediated by effective products and services. For most of the world, access, and thereby choice, are severely limited due to market failures that result in few, uncompetitive products. This is perhaps most apparent in the global banking sector that often has little to offer for a majority of the population.

Recognizing this market failure as a business opportunity, Roy and Bertrand Sosa co-founded NetSpend Corporation and created a reloadable pre-paid debit card that would become the most cost-effective payments solution for more than 2 million Americans. The success of NetSpend underscored for the Sosas the need to create innovative, market-based solutions to deliver access and choice to the underserved. To that end, in 2006 they founded MPOWER Ventures, the first global venture capital fund focused on empowerment of the underserved.

Now, to further global research on the subject, they are supporting the launch of the Empowerment Lab at CID. The Empowerment Lab will engage in research and activities to understand what limits the reach of markets, and the impact of improved access to key markets. It will engage in questions such as why/if R&D and product innovation are skewed toward more affluent segments, what are policy barries to extending markets to excluded populations, how the availability to fundamental services such as water, electricity and transportation affect access to markets, and how to encourage local entrepreneurship to develop appropriate products and services.

Roy Sosa, General Partner, MPower Ventures

Ricardo Hausmann, Director, Center for International Development