I live and breathe GreenMango: Yasmina McCarty

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Yasmina McCarty

Entrepreneur

What current project (or idea!) of yours are you most excited to share with everyone at TEDIndia?

Our company, GreenMango, is what I live and breathe everyday. GreenMango is a marketplace where we help more than 30,000 small businesses like carpenters, tailors and plumbers find their customers and grow their business.

We connect the informal economy to the formal economy through our 360 degree virtual platform. Co-founder Nandini Narula and I have been able to build a company that uses market-based approaches to address social need, and that is what I'm most excited to share at TEDIndia.

Who are the people that have greatly inspired you and your work?

There is one entrepreneur who particularly touched and ultimately inspired Nandini and I to start GreenMango. Malou Bacani is a green mango vendor in Baguio City in the Philippines, where I was raised. For the past 15 years, she has worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week selling mangos on the street, but she never earns more than $3 a day.

She continues to work hard and save so that her daughter can attend university and have a better life. But given Malou's income level, it is not clear whether she will ever achieve her goal. Malou represents so many of the micro entrepreneurs we have met over the years-they work hard, they have solid business skills, but yet are unable to get ahead.

GreenMango was created for the hundreds of thousands of hard working poor like Malou, who dream of a better life for themselves and their families.

What are you most looking forward to at TEDIndia?

At TEDIndia, I will be surrounded by individuals working on wildly different and extraordinary projects. The creative and intellectual energy at this event will be an exciting forum to consider new ideas.

What is your favourite TED Talk?

The guy who went for a swim at the North Pole – now that's crazy!

What does India mean to you?

India is the most vibrant and dynamic place you can ever live. Today I am especially enthusiastic about the amazing ideas developing in social enterprise - services and products that help millions of people at the bottom of the pyramid improve their lives while at the same time delivering a profit to the company.

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