Give Work with your iPhone
Two weekends ago, I had the pleasure of attending TEDx Silicon Valley, the local TED event, at Stanford University. I was thrilled that Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, and other notables were giving talks that day. But the one that really stood out for me was a presentation by Samasource founder Leila Chirayath Janah. I could have listened to her speak for a full hour, and was disappointed when it was time for Leila to wrap up her talk.
Samasource was founded by Leila based on the fact that literacy rates in poor countries have increased while infant mortality and premature death have lessened. “In this context,” she says, “the world’s poorest people don’t need our good intentions - they need new ways to earn money.”
Leila speaks with good humor and grace about her experience of going to Africa and working with intelligent, cheerful children - and then returning home only to receive letters from the same kids, demanding that they send her money. There is no vaccination for what Leila refers to as “the culture of handouts” bred by decades of foreign aid and wishful thinking.
One of the innovative ways that Leila and Samasource are helping vulnerable people in Africa is through the iPhone app Give Work.
Give Work lets you support refugees in Dadaab, Kenya—the world’s largest refugee site—in minutes by completing short, on-screen tasks. The refugees are training to complete these same tasks and, by volunteering to tag a video or trace a road, you will generate money to support their training as well as valuable data to help focus future training programs.
This is a really nifty little app. For every screen you complete (each screen takes less than a minute), you directly contribute one point to go toward one of the workers’ wellbeing. You can also see how many points it takes to earn food and email access - a great incentive to bust out this app the next time you’re bored, standing in line, or just feel like doing something to help someone else raise themselves up.
Filed under: Life
Interesting idea. Sorry I didn’t get it when I saw your Facebook entry.
It seems to be like a cycle of microjobs and microfinance. The good thing is the aggregate effect if large numbers of people can join up to use this application.
There are three things that I think would make a big difference in the least developed countries, two of which are things people in the USA and the European Union have to do.
The first is really make a fuss about the agricultural subsidy system: vote for ANYONE who promises to scrap it, vote against any incumbant who will not. I know this means actually registering to vote, telling all the candidates in primaries and the election that this is a deal-breaker, and giving money to the campaigns that do promise to scrap these rotten programs. (And go and vote, it’s no good if the guys who actually support reform don’t get the votes. Tell pollsters why you vote this way.)
Every day hundreds of people die in poorer countries so that “farmers” in Iowa, Bavaria and East Anglia can collect their loot from taxpayers (in the EU from a regressive tax that penalises the European poor). If that’s not a good enough cause, then I don’t think I can find a better one.
The second is to kick up a similar fuss about trade barriers in general. I can remember reading a textbook which described South Korea as poorer than North Korea (in the early 1960s). It’s free trade, not “fairtrade” or aid.
The third, we cannot do. The people in the poorest countries themselves have to decide they will not tolerate rotten government and bureaucracy. They need to remove kleptocrats, preferably by peaceful means. The only way this could be done from outside would be to restore colonial rule, which is a non-starter. The best hope for this is an emerging middle class, which cannot happen if the likes of Senator Chuck Grassley (Republican, Iowa) continue to put their cronies’ interests ahead of the lives of the world’s poor. Which brings us back to my first two suggestions.
I accept that the weakness of my proposals is that they require communal action to succeed, and a lot of effort and commitment (including as much cash as one can spare). The good thing about “Give Work” is that it makes a difference, one step at a time. I hope it succeeds.