Samasource is excited to have Denise ‘Roz’ Sewell, Director of Crisis Mapping for the Ushahidi Haiti Project, sharing a blog post with us from her recent travels to the 1,000 Jobs / Haiti site in Mirebalais. There she introduced the Samasource work team to several new software innovations that make pinpointing the locations of  emergencies much more accurate. This post also appeared on the Ushahidi blog.

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I am a crisis mapper. I have been mapping need in Haiti. That means that I take a message (from Twitter, Facebook, SMS), and based on information contained within the message, I place it on a map. Primarily, I have been working with the Ushahidi Haiti project and the Mission 4636 group of organizations. Through the short-code 4636 we created a picture of the evolving crisis in Haiti that was unprecedented in both its scope and timing. However, I live in Boston. I am from Atlanta. Honestly, it makes no sense for me to be the one mapping locations in Haiti when there are Haitians ready and willing to interact in the discussions of their own reconstruction.

So, I travel to Haiti. As a part of the Ushahidi Haiti project run by the Fletcher Team, one of our primary goals is to transfer skills and knowledge to the affected populations so that they can use everything we’ve learned through the 4 months we’ve spent working on this project. This means that the purpose of my trip was two-fold: 1 – asses the potential to transfer our knowledge to a single Haitian organization in Haiti and 2 – begin to transfer knowledge to any existing organizations that could use it.

Naturally, I went to Mirebalais. One of the key members of the Mission4636 group is Samasource – an organization bringing computer-based jobs to disadvantaged communities around the world. In a partnership with 1,000 Jobs they set up a computer center in Mirebalais, Haiti to translate messages coming into 4636 from Creole into English. I went to this computer center ready and willing to transfer my knowledge about crisis mapping, technology, and the Ushahidi platform.

What I have loved about my work in Haiti is that oftentimes when I feel like I have something to say or give, Haitians give it back to me ten fold. In my trip to Mirelabais I know I taught the workers how to find coordinates using Open Street Map, but I can definitely say that they taught me so much more – they taught me about Haiti.

The first day of my trip, the directors of the 1,000 Jobs site bring me to the center. Before my training, we sat in the office and talked about Haiti. We talked about their lives and ideas for the country, and how hard they’ve worked to get to where they are. I was afraid that my trip would be considered another burden or task they need to supervise. Instead, I received the resounding feedback, “No, this is the idea, we need to bring more skills to Haiti. Thank you.”

Later, I sat down with six intelligent, young Haitians eager to learn this new skill. I show them the Haiti Crisis Map and walk them through the training documents. Then, I show them the satellite imagery feature and how there is an image of this exact computer center building from the sky on the Internet. I teach them how to find their houses. They picked it up immediately and started laughing to each other, finding their parents’ or aunts’ houses once they mastered the current location. They loved it, and they turned to me and said, “I didn’t know this could exist for Haiti.”

A screenshot of the crisis mapper software in action

The next day I taught them Ushahidi, which again they understood immediately. I sat back and watched the morning shift train the night shift on creating a report, and then suddenly I felt useless – I had trained an amazing group in the morning and they understood the idea of crisis mapping so well that I could sit back and just listen. Occasionally, they would ask me a question but really I remained a quiet bystander watching Haitian crisis mapping happen the way it was suppose to happen – with Haitians.

Roz leads a training session in Haiti

Later that day, some of the 1,000 Jobs workers took me around Mirebalais. We had lunch at a small restaurant, where the typical Haitian spaghetti breakfast was served. They showed me the rest of town and talked about their lives at university before the earthquake. They asked me about Facebook and wanted to know my opinions about music. They talked about their families and their friends. They just talked about life.

Now that I am back in the US I realize the unbelievable importance of this trip, and I realize that these workers actually trained me. They showed me Haiti as not just a crisis and not just a map. They reminded me there is a country underneath all the rubble and in fact, there is a country despite the rubble. They showed me Haiti.

Social Change 2.0 – Using the Web for Good

Curious to find out more about how the web is shaping the future of the “social change” movement? Come find out on May 3! Hear from an exceptional group of speakers who are using the power of information technology to achieve social impact offline.

Date: Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Samasource and Crowdflower received the “Netexplorateurs of the Year” Award for their GiveWork iPhone application at the French Senate in Paris today.  This award is conferred on the most promising digital initiatives each year; in previous years, Twitter and the Dutch augmented reality application Layar were recognized.

Samasource and CrowdFlower were covered on the French news channel TFI and in this video from TerraFemina:

A typical day of work in Nairobi for me starts with the commute to work using a matatu (usually a minivan/minbus). The roads are pretty bumpy and the traffic jam is quite heavy, no one can predict when the bus will reach its destination. By the time I make it to the office (a shared space kindly donated by one of Samasource’s service providers) most people are already at work.

While the official business language in Kenya is English, a good thing for foreigners like me, most Kenyans are trilingual (they fluently speak their tribal language, Swahili and English). The dress code is rather strict and most people doing business in Kenya wear a suit.

The aspect of time takes getting used to especially when scheduling an appointment in Kenya where it is common work on Swahili time. On needs to program this extra time to the initial appointment and be very patient for your contact to show up. Personally, I did not experience this problem during my work, because I am not a local. In fact, Samasource partners were kind enough to adapt to US culture and were always timely. But I had to deal with African customs when scheduling personal appointments and learned to be very flexible about time.

The mornings usually go by very quickly and tea is served frequently. A habit that I think was introduced by the British and carried on by the Indians and now a staple of work life for the Africans. Most of Kenyan workers that I met are welcoming and relaxed people, I feel very secure and comfortable when visiting Samasource Service partners. They usually have a positive opinion of Westerners and are mostly kind and respectful. The lunch break is around one o’clock and that’s when most of the team indulges in chicken curry with chapattis (large tortillas) at the local restaurant.

Visiting the Partner sites can sometimes be challenging in that there are no bus maps to indicate locations or times. Sometimes the partners are kind enough to pick me up. Others do their best to send me as much information as they can to help me locate their store or office.

The workforce at the Service Partners comprises roughly of equal amounts of men and women. I found the Kenyan women to be very hardworking and ambitious: They are usually multitasking, switching from their job to family matters and home activities with ease. They are astute entrepreneurs, and many are in highly regarded positions are handled by women. Adept Technologies is a good example of a Samasource partner founded by highly efficient women entrepreneurs. Indeed, both the CEO and the president of the company are women: Diana and Mercy. They have an excellent background and have “joined forces” to create Adept Technologies, a small but stable company employing 15 people.

Since my initial task to create the worker’s profiles for the Samasource website is now complete, I am now assisting with the greeting cards project. In this endeavor I am training Samasource workers to create greeting cards www.samasource.org/gifts The greeting cards include beautifulful pictures from Kenya as well as greetings in English and Swahili. This project will allow our partners to earn an income while giving them the ability to work in a new and creative way: Make sure you participate in their efforts and enjoy one of these cards yourself!

When arriving in Nairobi, one can quickly feel stifled by people, noise, pollution, so the charm of the city is not obvious at first. This city is like a whirlwind that can be stunning. But after the first shockwave, one gets used to this environment and appreciates the kind of life Nairobi has to offer.

I have been working as a Samasource (Samasource.org) fellow for one month now; it has been an experience which can be described as a journey of discovery, adaptation, meeting and sharing. Discovering the lifestyle here, adapting to the time and skills, meeting welcoming partners and talented workers, sharing of ideas and skills.

My initial task as a Fellow was to populate a new online database for Samasource for their website. This site now has the profiles of potential employees which allows new and existing clients to get a better feel of the knowledge, expertise and circumstance/aspirations of people they work with. My task was to compile a profile for every worker who participated in a Samasource project. Once the profiles were reviewed and the photos available I uploaded them onto the Samasource website. They are available on: www.samasource.org/impact.

This is great way to literally “put a face to a name” and to connect the workers with employers. It allows one to forget about the distance and understand Samasource’s goals by linking workers to jobs.

In visiting all the Service Partners and people, I learned how Samasource has given not only a “hand-up” but in fact provided life changing opportunity to workers. One of the workers I met was single mother who could not provide for her two children. Samasource, working with the service provider, has helped her to become independent and take care of her livelihood.

I met all kinds of people during this project, most of them are young and educated, went to or are actually at university in various sectors such as Hotel Management, Information and Technology, International Business, etc. All workers seem really motivated, talented and open minded. The service partners in Nairobi always provided a warm welcomed and I had really interesting discussions with some workers about various subjects as life, work, and the impact of Samasource projects.

Daproim (daproim.com) one of Samasource partners, provided me with office space during this project as well as Internet access. Steve, the president of the company, is an enthusiastic young entrepreneur who wants every employee to be treated with respect. He is interested in various training projects aimed at distressed people. Daproim, like some other Samasource partners, offers part-time work to local university students and facilities for disabled workers. Daproim started in 2006 with four employees, today it has already around 10. The plan is to grow to 20 or 30 people in the next years.

Steve is supporting a Cisco training center a few kilometers away from Nairobi. There, young women, often single mothers, are trained to do data entry and transcription tasks. This training is subsidized by an NGO. These women really want to succeed, and you can see in their eyes their thirst for knowledge. Steve feeds their motivation, while acknowledging that he needs to connect these women with jobs. There is no doubt that future difficulties lay ahead. The notion of hard work is on everyone’s lips, as there are no other means to succeed and the only way for them to benefit from a better life. Thus people are totally ready to offer their best.

So as I get used to the hustle and bustle of the city and plan my visits to the different service partners I feel good about lending a hand. I have to say that in my month of working as a Fellow for Samasource and helping create the Profiles database I too have learned the value of hard work! In my next blog I will write more about a typical work day for me in Nairobi.

Then last summer I spend five weeks in South Africa and had the privilege of speaking with many of the Africans affected by poverty in the rural townships there. One particularly striking moment for me came during a conversation I had with one man who was twenty-three, just a year older than myself at the time. He talked about how he had dropped out of school at age 12 to support his family but was now struggling to find jobs, essentially working for free at a factory in the hopes of eventually being hired on. That experienced truly showed me the desire that people in these extremely poor conditions have for work. They want to be empowered through work. Only work can ultimately bring a someone out of poverty and more importantly bring them self-esteem.

When I heard about Samasource, I immediately saw this business as an opportunity to bring the gift of work to people living in poverty. Better yet, Samasource has the opportunity to scale itself because of its business model, while treading the fine line between business and non-profit.

It is hard to define exactly what Samasource is, but after working in sales for Samasource for three months, I have come to believe that more organizations should be modeled like Samasource. While I often am making sales calls and writing up contracts, I also have the pleasure of working with our service partners in Africa and Asia, making daily cross-cultural connections.

Samasource is a business in many ways, but it is not focused on profits; instead it’s focused on empowering people through work with the tools of business. It has been a powerful motivator to know that each project that I closed would directly lead to more work for workers at our service partners. There is something fresh and different about working in the Samasource system, where doing good means doing good business. I hope that more businesses like Samasource will be founded around this genuine desire to help people because because I have seen the power of this model in my short time at Samasource.

I thought I’d share an Op-Ed I wrote that was published in The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, on Tuesday this week — it’s called Rethinking Outsourcing.

A positive social label could do much to change consumer perceptions of outsourcing to poor regions

IT’S a tough time for the outsourcing industry – 69% of Americans think outsourcing hurts the US economy, and President Barack Obama has publicly criticised companies that offshore American jobs.

Recent estimates hold that the market for offshore services is shrinking. As many companies re-think expansion plans and close doors, social responsibility – ranging from green initiatives to progressive labour policies – may be relegated to the back burner.

Roughly 1.4 billion people live in extreme debilitating poverty, earning less than US$1.25 a day in 2005. What’s remarkable about people in such circumstances is the great faith they place in education.

In countries like Kenya, families spend 277% of per-capita income (which averages about US$935 a year) on tertiary education. They borrow in order to send one or two children off to vocational school or college.

These young people then graduate and constitute a massive skilled labour force – over 175 million strong in rural Asia and Africa alone – that suffers from perilously high unemployment.

In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly large cities surrounded by slums, unemployment rates among graduates of high school and technical and vocational colleges exceed 60%.

Jobless youth between the ages of 18 and 25 are prime recruits for rebel armies, opposition groups and crime rings.

Remote work is a term used to describe the smaller side of the outsourcing industry – the piecemeal tasks like data entry, video transcription, and personal assistance – which small businesses and individuals can seldom afford to complete with local labour.

This type of work doesn’t require much more than basic training, low-cost hardware, and bandwidth to complete.

Because the work is relatively low-risk (unlike, say, call centre services), it can be done by mom-and-pop operations in regions that lack costly infrastructure, or are sparsely populated, like much of rural Asia and Africa.

Thomas Friedman made a similar point in The World is Flat in 2005, but his analysis focused on job creation in middle- to low-income countries, rather than among the poor (while India may be considered a poor country, there’s a big difference between Bangalore and rural Bihar).

Outsourcing has created over 2.3 million office jobs in Asia, but very little of that wealth has impacted the world’s poorest people, who are off the map to most large businesses.

In 2007, Forbes announced seven billionaires who made their fortunes in outsourcing. All were American, Chinese or Indian men.

Giant companies like Accenture and IBM still dominate the outsourcing market. The latter topped The Outsourcing Global 100, a list produced by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, for the last two years.

Could small-scale outsourcing to locally-owned businesses make a bigger dent on poverty in places like Africa?

Several websites, including Elance, oDesk.com and Rentacoder, help customers connect to freelancers and small companies for projects in the under-US$1,500 range.

But they often use software or require payment methods that are out of reach for many smaller African providers. The fact is it may cost a bit more to work with a business in a remote region, and buyers don’t seem willing to swallow the cost.

I believe they would if their purchasing decisions generated positive PR or were known to impact consumer preferences.

The fair trade movement applied similar thinking to agriculture and manufacturing. Now, Fairtrade-certified goods constitute a US$2.3bil dollar industry growing at over 40% a year.

A team of researchers at Stanford found that consumers were willing to pay up to 15% more for a package of coffee with an ethical business label such as fair trade.

There are a few obstacles to making this work. First, bandwidth in Africa is costly because existing fiber optic capacity is by state monopolies that keep prices high.

But there’s hope. This year, two new submarine cables will arrive in East Africa. One of them, funded by private investors, should lower the cost of going online by 90%.

Second, buyers don’t yet benefit from working with small-scale businesses in marginalised regions because Fairtrade has no equivalent in the services sector.

A positive social label could do much to change consumer perceptions of outsourcing to poor regions.

Over the last six months, a team of students at Stanford Law School developed the first version of a social label for small services firms in poor regions.

This label includes businesses and non-profit organisations in high-poverty areas that invest a large percentage of their revenue locally on things like staff training and salaries.

Millions of skilled workers in the world’s poorest places stand to benefit if the industry responds favourably.

I am a very optimistic person, optimistic to the point where most think I’m a little crazy. I have tried the “In a mad world, it’s only the mad that are considered sane” approach to assuage my need to fit in with the mostly glass-half-empty lot that most of my acquaintances are, but, it doesn’t work. Then why don’t I change the way I am? Simple: because good things have happened when I was least expecting them. Like Samasource.

It’s been about a month since I’ve been doing odd bits for Samasource as a virtual assistant. Seeing the work Samasource is doing for people in countries like Kenya and Pakistan has been a source of inspiration. To want to help people that you don’t know, irrespective of religion, culture, or belief is not something many people do.

Speaking as a citizen of my country, there is huge scope and potential for an organization like Samasource. Pakistan is a strong patriarchal society with little distinction between culture and religion with women on the losing end. Though most women are denied the opportunity for education, but to be educated and unable to use that education is stifling. Samasource offers to women a way out as a balance between conforming to cultural norms and utilizing skills whether it be writing, programming or web development. It gives an opportunity for women entrepreneurs to step forward and start their own companies from their homes and find work through Samasource.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” (Theodore Roosevelt)

When I look at the impossible task in front of Samasource and the honesty and conviction with which they are working to make it possible I understand the meaning of these words. Sometimes it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about dreaming and having the courage to try and make that dream into reality. Samasource has renewed my belief in people. It takes a whole lot of darkness to make it dark but only a small flicker of light to cut through it. That’s what Samasource means to me and other women in Pakistan; it’s our own ray of light, our way of escaping the claustrophobic environment surrounding us.

Check out the coverage here: http://www.stanforddaily.com/cgi-bin/?p=2268.