Leila Janah named Rainer Arnhold Fellow
Read more about the Rainer Arnhold ProgramTHE PROGRAM
Rainer Arnhold Program guides social entrepreneurs to scale up their work to benefit millions. Janah, a current Arnhold Fellow, collaborates with Fellows and Faculty to maximize Samasource impact and scalability.
THE PERSON
Leila Chirayath Janah is a former management consultant turned silicon valley social entrepreneur. Leila Chirayath Janah spent 10 years at Harvard and the World Bank learning about and working on solutions to poverty. She moved to San Francisco to go all-out on her big idea and to test the outer limits of caffeine consumption.
THE STORY
An education doesn’t do you much good when there aren’t any jobs, and in Sub-Saharan Africa there are many places where joblessness among the literate is above 60%. The waste of potential is even starker in refugee camps where the educated sit idle, unable to do much that is productive. Donor enthusiasm for computers in Africa has created has led to under-used computer centers, while firms in the U.S. have a lot of simple computer-based tasks they need done. Leila Chirayath Janah saw that the Internet could connect the two to bring decent jobs to those who need them most. Samasource (‘’sama means “equal” Sanskrit) connects jobless women, youth, and refugees to dignified, computer-based work, such as data entry and basic programming. Samasource partners with organizations with access to the educated jobless and available computer capacity, trains them how to do the work, and drums up business through its US sales team. Given the projected growth of exportable computer-based tasks in the US, and computer access and bandwidth in poor countries, Samasource has the potential to bring dignified, decent-paying work to multitudes of literate poor in Africa and beyond.
HOW IT WORKS
- Samasource recruits reliable organizations – “Service Partners” — with computer capacity in low-income regions and refugee camps
- Service Partners are trained in five service areas – data and testing services, virtual assistance, transcription and captioning, and web services
- Paying work for Service Partners is generated through Samasource websites and sales team
- Individuals get work through the Service Partner and develop growing skills and online reputation
- Samasource continually checks work quality
- Individuals can eventually get work on their own