Companies work together to improve mobile lending experience with Angular 2 RC and NativeScript

Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS) today announced that it is working with Rangle.io and Google to help Kiva develop better mobile applications for connecting lenders and borrowers around the world.

When your goal is to connect people through lending and expand economic opportunity around the globe, you want the best tools to get the job done. Founded in 2005, Kiva has mainstreamed microlending and pioneered the crowdfunding space by leveraging the power of collective good and new technologies in unique ways.

Today, Kiva’s community of 1.4 million lenders crowdfund more than $2.5 million in loans per week to borrowers in 80 countries, including the U.S. These small dollar loans have helped nearly 2 million borrowers start and grow businesses, go to school, buy clean energy products, and more. Through Kiva, anyone can make a loan as little as $25 to the person of their choice.

“Kiva was born from a simple idea–to connect people through lending–but the technology behind that promise gets complicated quickly,” said Kevin O’Brien, Kiva’s Chief Technology Officer. “That’s where Telerik and Rangle come in, building mobile apps to spark connections that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. The simpler we make it to connect a lender to a borrower, the more impact we can achieve together.”

The One-Two Punch of NativeScript and Angular 2 RC

Working with Rangle.io and Google, Progress, approached Kiva to begin building a better mobile experience, for both iOS and Android, using NativeScript®, an open source solution for building high performance, native mobile apps with JavaScript. Developed and supported by Telerik, a Progress company, the NativeScript solution is unlike traditional hybrid or web apps, it produces native apps, using platform-native UI to deliver maximum performance — even on older Android devices — while still making it easy to share code and skills between the web and different platforms.

The NativeScript solution also deeply integrates with Google’s recently released Angular 2 RC framework. Together, Angular 2 RC and NativeScript solutions are a powerful combination that allows developers to use the same framework and code to build modern apps for the web and, now, native mobile apps. They are a powerful one-two punch for developers looking to deliver the best web and mobile experiences using shared code and skills.

“Technology is a means to an end. We built the NativeScript solution and integrated it with Angular RC so that the industry could take another giant step forward in mobile app development,” said Todd Anglin, Chief Evangelist at Telerik, a Progress company. “With no-compromise performance, and native apps that easily reach iOS and Android, developers have even more time to focus on the ‘ends’ and deliver amazing experiences to users.”

The Partnership: Rangle.io Delivered, Angular 2 RC and NativeScript Enabled

Pulling from years of experience building mobile apps, Rangle.io is now helping Kiva leverage NativeScript and Angular 2 RC solutions to build a mobile app. Rangle.io is a JavaScript development firm specializing in delivering next-generation web and mobile applications with AngularJS.

The partnership kicks off with a concept app that enables people in the U.S. to find small businesses in their local area fundraising on Kiva. The idea is to strengthen the connections created through lending by making it easier for potential funders to visit those businesses, become customers, and ultimately lend to them.

Ultimately, the power of these technologies and partnerships will give Kiva the leverage to optimally connect lenders and borrowers around the world. The NativeScript framework provides a nimble solution to the “what’s optimal in the browser and what’s optimal on mobile devices?” question while allowing Kiva to best use their limited engineering budget.

The first app that Kiva will publish to the Google Playstore and Apple App store will be based on Telerik’s NativeScript and Google’s Angular 2.

“What we love about the NativeScript solution is native components that work and perform really well without surprises, the ability to use web development tools and workflows, the native app like performance, and the ability to develop simultaneously for both iOS and Android,” said Nick Van Weerdenburg, CEO of Rangle.io.

Google, meanwhile, sees the Kiva app as a perfect illustration of why they focused on cross-platform development for Angular 2. Before Angular 2, developers using Angular were limited to building apps locked into the browser. With the new improvements in Angular 2, apps are not only faster, but they can break-free of the browser when paired with frameworks like NativeScript.

“We specifically designed Angular 2 to help developers deliver to more platforms than just the desktop web,” says Brad Green, Engineering Director on the Angular team at Google. “In this vein, we created its architecture with pluggable template engines and renderers.  We worked closely with Telerik’s NativeScript team in building their native iOS and Android support to work with Angular’s core.  This opens up whole new classes of applications for developers who already know Angular.”

What started as a challenge to prove new technologies has evolved into a mission to show how technology can truly help make the world a better place. Progress, Rangle.io and Google all view this as the beginning of a journey that will benefit developers, and users, around the globe.