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In July, Intelligentsia<\/a> teamed up with Root Capital<\/a> to put on the first-ever ECWx<\/a>, an offshoot of the coffee company\u2019s Extraordinary Coffee Workshop<\/a> (ECW). Longtime readers of Sprudge may recognize that acronym; the weeklong \u201csignature innovation\u201d of Intelligentsia\u2019s Direct Trade takes place yearly in producing countries all around the world, and we have been covering it since 2011<\/a>. ECWx, the TEDx to ECW\u2019s TED, as Intelligentsia\u2019s Michael Sheridan calls it in his most recent blog post<\/a>, took place in Nari\u00f1o, Colombia and focused on issues relevant to local smallholder farmers with a \u201cdeep-dive on all things Colombian.\u201d<\/p>\n Now in its 10th<\/sup> year, ECW wanted to do something a little different in scope, something smaller. Thus, ECWx was born. According to the Sheridan\u2019s post, \u201cECWx was created explicitly and exclusively for smallholder coffee farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n With the help of Root Capital, \u201ca non-profit financial services provider\u201d\u2014whom Sheridan refers to as the Apple of non-profits\u2014Intelligentsia is hoping to help those in the \u201cmissing middle,\u201d those too big for micro-finance loans but too small or risky for commercial banks. According to the post, coffee coops and other coffee-based institutions at origin fall in the missing middle, a billion-dollar segment that is \u201csystematically underserved.\u201d<\/p>\n Expect to see more local-focused ECWx events from Intelligentsia in the future. Next month, ECW will land in Bolivia, where more than 50 producers from 15 countries will be in attendance. For more information on the inaugural ECWx, Michael Sheridan\u2019s full blog post can be found here<\/a>. And be sure to check out the ECWx in Pictures, a photo-journal recap<\/a> of the week\u2019s events.<\/p>\n Zac Cadwalader<\/a>\u00a0is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.\u00a0Read more Zac Cadwalader\u00a0on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n All images via Intelligentsia Coffee.<\/em><\/p>\n Disclosure: Intelligentsia Coffee is an advertising partner on Sprudge Media Network.<\/em><\/p>\n The post ECWx: Intelligentsia’s Next Big Idea At Origin<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In July, Intelligentsia teamed up with Root Capital to put on the first-ever ECWx, an offshoot of the coffee company\u2019s Extraordinary Coffee Workshop (ECW). Longtime readers of Sprudge may recognize…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,41],"tags":[63,45,65,47,61,49,59,55,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1039,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sprudge.com\/file\/2018\/08\/ECWx-group.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\nWe\u00a0believe specialty coffee\u2019s clearest path to improving social impact at origin is through the inclusion of the coffee chain\u2019s two most marginalized groups of participants: smallholder farmers and coffee farmworkers. \u00a0Contributing to greater participation and profitability among smallholder farmers, and helping expand opportunity and improve working conditions for farmworkers, are the best ways to expand the promise of specialty coffee. \u00a0ECWx is part of that effort, bringing the value we create for Intelligentsia Direct Trade supply chain partners every year through ECW to a broader audience of smallholder growers.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sprudge.com\/file\/2018\/08\/ecwx2.jpg\")
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