I’m an immigrant. My family migrated to Canada in the early 70’s with only a few dollars in our pockets. My dad baked bread on a night shift in order to put food on the table. In 1973, he approached a bank and applied for a small business loan, to which the branch manager replied “Mr. Benegbi, you don’t meet the bank's criteria for this loan. However, I believe in people so here’s $5,000. ” My dad took this money and started a small business. A year later my mom followed a similar path.That $5,000 became the springboard for our family’s lives in Canada. I’ve grown up in a small business family and my professional successes, and failures, have come as a small business owner. Small business has traditionally been an underserved market within financial services. With the impact and devastation all small business owners have felt through the pandemic, and now entering this uncertain economic climate, access to fair and ethical credit has never been more difficult to attain.Uplinq is the first, global credit assessment & scoring platform for small business lenders. Uplinq empowers lenders to approve and manage risks on loans they would have otherwise declined based on traditional loan underwriting criteria, while incorporating environmental, market & community data to better understand the specific loan applicant.If we are able to turn even one no into a yes, then we’ve served our purpose. Hopefully, we’ll do a lot more than this and be able to impact the lives of millions of families worldwide.