Bringing tech jobs to Third World refugees
Thanks to a nonprofit called Samasource, refugees in Kenya are starting to find Internet-based work that can pay them triple what they could earn before.
(Credit: Samasource)Workers stuck in the world's largest refugee camp are being given a chance to wield a mouse and keyboard as tools for digging their way out of poverty, and in the process, are helping out a series of small American companies looking to be more profitable.
The workers, many of whom have been in the refugee camp in Kenya for years, are toiling at new jobs--in which they do short, simple projects over the Internet--provided to them by an innovative San Francisco nonprofit serving as an intermediary between companies needing an efficient way to get small tasks done and groups of educated but displaced people with few other employment prospects.
The nonprofit, known as Samasource, has built a business model around the idea that there are some projects too small to make sense for American workers to do, yet perfect in scale and scope for refugees and others in the Third World. For example, one Samasource client, a solar panels repairman, engaged the company to get workers to scour satellite photos of American cities for houses with solar set-ups in order to generate potential sales leads.
And while such a dynamic may make some suspect exploitation of the refugees, a group of independent experts say that it is precisely these kinds of tasks--which can pay at least triple the wages of other jobs, assuming there are any--that can begin to help address the tremendous poverty found in so many countries around the world.
According to Leila Chirayath Janah, the founder of Samasource, the company is focusing on bringing jobs to the refugee camps in Kenya, as well as to impoverished workers in Pakistan, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, and India. For now, it is looking for American clients who need work done in one of five Internet-based service areas--often small tasks such as comparing texts or looking for copyright violations in pictures. "It's not displacing opportunities for Americans," said Janah, "but expanding what entrepreneurs can do with a limited budget."
Janah explained that to date, the best possible work available to many people in the refugee camp--which has more than 300,000 people living in highly cramped conditions, often for years--is pounding rock in a quarry for 50 cents a day. By comparison, she said, work done for Samasource clients can pay $1 to $2 an hour.
GiveWork, a new iPhone app from CrowdFlower and Samasource, lets users of Apple's hit device help out the Kenyan refugees.
(Credit: CrowdFlower)On Tuesday, Samasource and a partner, CrowdFlower, released an iPhone application called GiveWork, that aims to make it possible for Americans with time on their hands to assist in making sure that the work being done by the refugees is accurate. The idea, explained Lukas Biewald, CEO of CrowdFlower, is that while many of the refugees doing work through Samasource are educated, there are cultural and language issues that may get in the way of getting each task done perfectly.
And that's where the iPhone app comes in. Biewald said that those using the app can spend some of their spare time doing the same tasks as the refugees, which can help ensure that the final product is accurate.
For example, Biewald said, one task might involve the refugees going through sets of Twitter posts or blog entries about a company, trying to identify which are positive and which are negative. In many cases, the workers in Kenya may be able to make the distinction, but from time to time, there might be something that is difficult for them to categorize. And that's where a helping hand from a user of the iPhone app could be useful.
This application of crowdsourcing to a larger issue is just the latest in a growing number of such approaches being employed in apps for the iPhone and other smart phones. Experts say that such devices allow large numbers of people to apply their excess time to issues or problems larger than their own.
No. 1 goal: Increasing wages
While the GiveWork iPhone app will bring some individual Americans into the equation, the bulk of the effort is being done directly through Samasource by the refugees themselves, many of whom have some education and have been longing for either something to do with their skills, or for the training to learn new ones.
An image of one of the increasing number of computer labs found in refugee camps these days. The labs are used, in part, as places for refugees to work at Internet-based jobs.
(Credit: Samasource)Janah said that thanks to donations from organizations like the Danish Refugee Council, there are a growing number of computer centers with satellite dishes in the camps in Kenya and elsewhere, and that is quickly bringing the Internet into areas where people until now have largely been cut off from the global economy.
She acknowledged that some may view what Samasource and its clients are doing as exploitation of the refugees but said that far from that, it is a valuable merger of a potent workforce and companies that are able to pay people fair wages for tasks that likely wouldn't be economically viable in the U.S.
"The No. 1 goal is increasing wages," said Janah of the more than 10 years of economic development work she's done in poor countries around the world. "People are locked in situations...with zero jobs available to them. Over 500 workers in our system are eager to get any kind of work. It's the exact opposite of exploitation."
Part of it, she added, is that by giving refugees a chance to do Internet-based work, they are both learning valuable new skills and having a chance to connect far beyond the world they know.
And several experts in economic development contacted for this story agreed that the kind of projects Samasource is delivering into the hands of the poverty-stricken can make a big difference in the workers' lives.
"Internet-based markets actually seem quite promising," said Seema Jayachandran, an assistant professor of economics at Stanford. "If people are remaining at the refugee camps for several years, they can put their (education) to use. They don't have as much mobility as many workers, so in that sense, Samasource may have stumbled onto something powerful."
Further, said Jayachandran, while the Internet makes it possible for workers throughout the world to compete for projects, a company like Samasource may help skilled refugees build the kind of reputation that would make them attractive to American companies for future outsourcing projects. "That's the development goal," Jayachandran said, "that these jobs are going to lift the standard of living of the people" doing them.
Another interesting element of this, she said, is that it can help remove some of the onus of helping the impoverished from aid organizations and create an economic incentive on the part of for-profit companies to do so.
That's an idea with which Michael Maltese, the managing director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, concurred.
Samasource "is challenging the dominant perspective," Maltese said, "which is that poor people...are to be seen as recipients of aid. But the approach that Samasource and other organizations are taking, to provide income-generating work, is, in my (opinion), a more exciting way to look at this."
And because, as Maltese explained, the average time someone spends in a Kenyan refugee camp is 17 years, "any effort to train them to access the global economy is positive."
To be sure, there are plenty of other organizations involved in outsourcing to third-world countries, like China and India. And, said James Davis, a University of California at Santa Cruz associate professor in computer science with expertise in economic development, the effects of years of such employment, in many cases, have done wonders to raise workers' standard of living. But most of the organizations engineering such outsourcing are for-profits, and are sending employment to a higher strata than is Samasource.
A sign crediting the Danish Refugee Council with donating computers for a lab in Kenya.
(Credit: Samasource)By contrast, Davis said, Samasource has taken the traditional outsourcing model and asked, "'How far can we push this?'" In other words, he said, Samasource is building a bridge between small first-world companies with extra work and the "very bottom" of the economic ladder.
As a result, Davis said, he is "very excited" about what Samasource is doing.
He said that while other efforts, such as Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk, have come along to distribute very small tasks to those willing to work for minimal amounts, people in places like Kenyan refugee camps are excluded because they don't have American bank accounts.
Davis also said there are precedents that show that what Samasource is trying can work. He pointed both to Txteagle, an effort by entrepreneur Nathan Eagle to get the millions of Kenyans with mobile phones to do small SMS-based tasks for money, and to reCaptcha, the effort to massively distribute to Internet users the task of deciphering jumbled words from scanned books.
But what Samasource is trying, Davis said, is different. The goal there, is "reaching (out) and trying to understand the bottom of the bottom."
Some day, Davis added, bigger organizations will come along and figure out how to bring first-world dollars into the hands of those at the economic bottom rungs. But that is a ways off.
Now, he said, "you need the charitable organizations (like Samasource) to go and source out how everybody is going to benefit all the way down."
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
Saying the jobs are too small for North American workers is just bunk. Add those jobs to others and suddenly there's a lot of work for a few people. The only reason these jobs are being exported is so the companies can take advantage of the low wages out-of-country and avoid paying a minimum wage. Of course, they have packaged it in a nice wrapper to try and look good.
Saying something like "Americans need to stop spending money they don't have" is fine and dandy, but has nothing to do with outsourcing jobs. Perhaps they would have the money to spend if the jobs weren't going overseas.
Also, saying " certain people are more worthy of jobs because of where they happen to have been born?" also has nothing to do with this. You don't feed the family next door if someone in your own family is going hungry, simple as that. It has nothing to do with worthiness and everything to do with making sure your own people are fed, housed and working to support their families before sending work they could be doing to people in other countries.
Exactly. Some seem to think that Americans are more deserving of benefits simply because they're Americans. It takes a very twisted ethical system to come to this sort of conclusion.
Just because they are only paying the poor $1.50 an hour doesn't mean that's what they would pay a North American worker.
You should feel lucky that many tasks CAN be outsourced. Ultimately most of the savings flow back to you as a consumer. At the same time, the next time you go out to eat, shouldn't you be a little upset that you're probably paying 20% more than a true market price b/c the government says that it's not okay for the market to set the wage of a job that CANNOT be outsourced, like that of a waiter? You probably don't think about this added tax because it's "invisible," but that doesn't make it any less real.
That said, I would also be willing to bet that even in the absence of a minimum wage, Americans have had it too good for too long to be willing to be paid at the true marginal value of their work for very low-skilled tasks. So even if there were no minimum wage, one of two things would happen when it came time to complete these very basic tasks: (1) A mutually beneficial transaction - the provider of the work wants it, the worker wants it - would never take place, or (2) These tasks would end up being shipped overseas to those who are grateful for work that may pay <$1 an hour. Since it is common sense that (1) would not benefit anyone, I think we should applaud services like Samasource that decrease the frictional costs associated with giving work to those who are grateful for it.
Outsourcing only looks at the "how much money do I spend" side of the equation, and in so doing, overlooks the "how much money can I make" side of the equation.
Is there something I missed here?
And I have heard you can actually dicker with sales reps at Best Buy over the price of a huge TV set like its a car or a house.
These people were trained for a day and told what to do. Even a non educated person who could at least read could do the same thing.
You morons, did you even read about what kind of jobs these are???? They are doing mechanical turk style mental labor -- not skilled labor. In other words, sorting through piles of images to tag them, reading articles to place the tone, etc. Those things are not worth doing for companies, unless they can be done very cheaply. If the price rises above a few cents per tag, it becomes more economical to use an automated system, even if the quality degrades.
****** sheep. Why don't you learn how to do something that people are willing to pay you for, instead of whining like idiots.
The whole world works hard from birth, and you idiots think you are some sort of royalty just because you are born here. Wake up and smell the coffee, morons, we all have to gain skills and work hard now. Can't friggin chill in high school for 12 years, and community college for 2 years, and not take a single engineering class, and expect to be highly paid.
What exactly is the moral argument for why you deserve a job more than a refugee? Because you were born on this side of an imaginary line on a map???? *** kind of logic is that??? If you said it was because you got a better test score or something I would agree with you, but just because you can call yourself an American citizen??? What a joke.
Its like Roman times all over again. People thinking they deserve stuff just because they are citizens of a particular place. Give me a break. We all gotta make our own way, and if someone does a better job, for cheaper, they deserve the job. Just because you think you deserve the job doesn't mean you do.
Next thing you know, people in California are gonna ask to keep Californian jobs in California. People in New Jersey will keep their jobs there. In fact, why not keep South Boston jobs in South Boston. ****** morons, open your ******* eyes and understand what you are asking for here with your idiot ranting.
You think we got this rich-ass lifestyle by closing off our country and becoming protectionists?
Hey dipshits, read up on pre-Meiji Restoration Japan to see how well economic isolation works for a country.
Funny how you assume someone isn't American because they defend free trade.
Unlike you, I know there is a place in the world for me as long as I work hard and remain flexible. I don't need the government to protect me from competition, because I learn skills that bring me the pay I need to sustain my lifestyle.
The only people complaining are those that don't want to learn new skills, and are afraid of competition.
Why do people think they deserve better than anyone else just because they are American? I mean, what did you personally do? The answer, nothing.
I worked at several start ups in California, and at almost all of them the majority of the engineers were foreign. And they were all getting paid more than 100K a year. A salary more than adequate for an American engineer. Why were there hardly any American engineers? The answer is only a few Americans have the discipline to learn real skills anymore. They all want to take easy bull courses and school and then expect to get paid just because they went to "college". Idiots don't understand that you gotta learn what the market wants you to learn, not what your "dreams" tell you to learn.
Kids in my high school wanted to be rappers, painters, actors, and businessmen! Hardly any one had practical career goals. I talk to my co-workers from other countries, and they never had such delusions when they were young, and don't recall people in their schools having such delusions. How many actor and rapper jobs are out there?
People in America waste 4 years on an English degree or Philosophy degree. How many English majors does this economy need? We need some no doubt, but not as many as we graduate. We need more engineers, doctors and accountants. People with real practical skills that can be used to increase the services and products in our economy.
These things are the source of our problems, not the dumb strawmen you people are raising.
People have to learn skills and be flexible enough to retrain when necessary. I have switched from engineer, to salesman, to product manage, and now I am in school again to train for another career because tech is not doing so hot in the Bay Area. I'm ok with that.
Yeah, keep piling more cliches on the internet like: "you are not American, you wouldn't understand."
Gimme a break, what about being American gives you some special insight?? Are you serious??? This attitude is the reason we are in the position we are in. In math and science our high schoolers are at the bottom of the industrialized world.
Take a walk around a top university engineering program and look at how many eastern european, indian, and chinese kids there are there. Our kids are not working as hard as other people.
And what is your answer???? Work less hard and change the laws???
Hey, genius, do you realize that our wealth comes from production, not from Jesus' golden goose. If we make less and less useful things, because our people are less and less useful, then eventually people will go elsewhere to sell their stuff. We gotta stay competitive and sharp by competing with everyone. Not closing our eyes and plugging our ears and pretending like other people are not competing harder than ever.
I'm the real American here. Not afraid to compete. Not not afraid to win. I don't know who you other people are. Some sort of charity cases, waiting for America to turn communist probably.
On the positive side, investing outside of the United States especially in third world countries or countries with poor living standards, it has actually improved conditions... in India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Ukraine and many other countries used for IT outsourcing.
Keep in mind however, that you will never be able to compete for as long as the cost of living is lower in these countries than the United States. Some people don't have to compete because they are unlikely to be outsourced, all I can say is good for you. But for the rest of us who have lost our jobs as a direct result of outsourcing, I feel your pain. I know people with an MBA from Harvard who are unemployed because his salary of $59,000 was too high.
Just remember, you can't just create money. If you send it overseas, you will have to somehow get it back. If you don't get it back, then you will have the same problem that started this whole financial crisis in the first place. You can speculate all you like, but when the banks don't have money and the US government has to pump billions of dollars into the economy, then you know that the money that was there is not there any more and it did not stay on American soil.
- by leila_c October 31, 2009 9:46 PM PDT
- Hi there, I'm the founder of Samasource. I am American, and grateful to live in a country that believes in meritocracy and hard work. When I was in high school, I used to carry around a pocket edition of the Constitution and Bill of Rights because I am so proud of our country's founding principles. (I'm not joking. Though I've lost the pocket constitution, I still write blog posts about Ben Franklin.)
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- by TechGuy2120 November 2, 2009 9:31 AM PST
- As richard993 poignantly stated, "Plant the seed now, reap the rewards later. This is another attempt to find alternative outsourcing destinations..."
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- by VonHayek November 10, 2009 5:41 PM PST
- Leila I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately for you there are many under educated people in our country that think that wealth generation is a zero-sum game, i.e. if someone else is making money, that must be money out of our pocket.
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- by TechGuy2120 November 11, 2009 8:33 AM PST
- VonHayek, I don't at all subscribe to the belief that the Government should dole out wealth to its citizens, you are missing my point. I have been speaking for the middle-class in this country. When the rich of this country trade with poorer nations to save a buck (i.e.) outsource middle-class American jobs at an alarming rate, what becomes of the middle-class of this country? Know I heard your argument from your past response, about how "they are doing mechanical Turk style mental labor," well this is true, you and I know that, but my question still remains unanswered, where does it end? It will start out as mechanical Turk style mental labor, but you must realize that it will lead to future outsourcing opportunities. Are we willing to continue making it easier for American employers to find cheaper overseas labor? Are you really willing to sacrifice middle-class America?
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(37 Comments)A big part of what makes our country so great is the fact that we believe in equal opportunity -- whether your parents were potato farmers in Ireland or immigrants from Kenya, our legal system gives you the same access to basic resources as everyone else. Our founding fathers realized that only when the playing field is level can we all realize our full potential.
But the reality for over 2 billion people around the world who live on less than $2 a day, including 42 million refugees, is a staggeringly unfair playing field. If you happen to lose the birth lottery and get born in Somalia, your life expectancy is going to be about 40, and you'll never have a chance to get a decent job, no matter how hard you work. Most likely, you'll end up getting killed or escaping to a refugee camp like Dadaab, where Samasource runs our program.
To the refugees we work with, a chance to do work -- even the most boring kinds of work that we'd turn down here in America -- is a life-changing opportunity. The alternatives are, quite literally, toiling away in fields for a dollar a day, or escaping to a big city and eking out a living in a slum.
It's hard to make the argument that what we do denies opportunity to Americans -- I'd argue the opposite: by giving basic jobs and dignity to refugees in places where terrorism looms large as a career path (Somali pirates actively recruit from within the camps), we are making America, and the rest of the world, a safer, fairer place.
So my question to you leila_c, which I've asked of others, is where does it end? Our situation here in THIS COUNTRY right now is not exactly the greatest, we continue to loose American jobs at a staggering rate. Some, if not most of the jobs we've once held here in this country, from IT to engineering to manufacturing, are gone forever.
Your response by saying "...But the reality for over 2 billion people around the world who live on less than $2 a day, including 42 million refugees, is a staggeringly unfair playing field..." is absolutely correct and cannot be argued, HOWEVER, may I remind you, AS AN AMERICAN, we have some major issues right here at home that need to be addressed before we continue to "Plant Seeds" and erode future job opportunities for Americans! If we continue down this path, how in the world can American workers compete? So, I WILL make the argument that what you are doing will deny opportunities for Americans.
This attitude comes from the poor economics education imparted in our schools. People haven't read Adam Smith, and think wealth is something that the government keeps in a vault and doles out to its citizens. They don't understand that when poor people around the world work, the net wealth on the planet increases, benefiting everyone. When the poor trade with the rich, both benefit. The poor benefit proportionately more, but the rich still benefit, even on an absolute scale.
BTW, I have my masters in engineering from Tufts University, so I'm intimately familiar with the Philosopher, Adam Smith. I just choose to be more patriotic to my fellow Americans!