Cindy Hellmann and Greg Flatt met in the Peace Corps in Mali. After they got married, they were hired by an international development agency to teach farmers about best business practices and how to develop value-added farm products. They quickly saw that many Malians already knew a lot about business and product development, and that what was lacking was a formal educational resource network where farmer could share their knowledge with other farmer.  Ecova Mali was born out of this need.