Samasource: Fighting Poverty with Digital Work
There are many tasks a computer can do. It can calculate huge numbers in milliseconds, it can help you edit the family photos, it can help you with your daily work, and it can connect us. Simply put, it has changed our lives in a short amount of time. Computers are changing lives in ways we aren't even aware of. Samasource is one of those ways. It connects those in poor countries with businesses in the US who need some help with digital work, or, as Samasource calls it, microwork. This could be anything, from tagging photos, to helping with content, to customer service. Typically, the work Samasource does comes down to a step in a project that may need a good amount of human involvement, but the company in question may not have the resources to handle it.
Leila Janah, the Founder and CEO of Samasource was frustrated by the notion that people in impoverished regions are looking for handouts and have nothing to offer. Rather than pursue another aid for poverty program, she decided why not look at ways to get work for the people. The type of work she focused on was digital. The workforce is comprised of women, refugees and young adults and they can make a good living working with Samasource.
In my opinion, this company is a great solution to a tough problem. Our tendency with poverty is to give to a cause without a notion of how our money is being used. Charity doesn't help the person find a way out. It can sustain the culture of giving and create an unintended cycle. Samasource provides a benefit for both the companies who need the work completed and the workers completing the work. It changes the paradigm and forces us to see these impoverished areas differently. Rather than think of Africa as this troubled place that needs our donations, it becomes a place for getting things done.
Read here to find out if Samasource is a fit for projects you may have at your work. Based on this idea, are there ways you think you could follow in Leila's and Samasource's footsteps in helping to fight the issue of poverty? Are there other groups you are aware of that fit this model? I don't think this idea is the end of it, only the beginning.