Leila C. of Samasource at Facebook Developers Garage in Kampala, Uganda
This morning I had an opportunity to be featured on The Hugh Macken Live radio show. Actually should I say, Leila Charayath Janar—who I interviewed last year at the Facebook Developer’s Garage in Uganda for Project Diaspora—was the featured guest. Myself, along with one Maria Umar from Pakistan were there for support.
I have to say that Samasource has given me the opportunity to feed my two loves: economic development in Africa and my passion for design. Yes, they may sound completely unrelated fields but that’s the beauty of Samasource. If you have the passion to do something socially responsible, they’ll find a way to accommodate your field of work. From transcription, to business processing, to computer application development, Samasource has the ability to cater to your needs while actively creating market opportunities in emerging markets.
Samasource enables marginalized people, from refugees in Kenya to women in rural Pakistan, to receive life-changing work opportunities via the Internet. The core of this concept is microwork – little bits of labor that can be performed anytime and anywhere that add up to a real livelihood for our partners. In parallel, we enable socially responsible companies, small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs in the US to contribute to economic development by buying services from our workforce at fair prices.
As a designer and web developer, it’s fulfilling to have the ability to tap into great developers and put really marginalized individuals to work in Africa, thereby merging my two passions. My work at TMS Ruge Media and Project Diaspora couldn’t be more diametrically opposed, but in a way, they are a means to each others end. Project Diaspora was started as way to promote the great work the African Diaspora that’s going unnoticed. And in a way, I am fulfilling that mission as a member of that Diaspora.
By next month I’ll be launching the two web projects that Samasource’s talented developers are helping me work on. I had occasion to visit the coders myself while I was in Nairobi this past summer and was quite impressed with the level of talent that was working on my projects. I was completely put at ease as they were well-versed programmers that were able to deliver just about any requested feature my clients needed.
So if you are a developmentally-minded or a member of the African Diaspora and would like to give work as your mission to do good or put Africa’s idle talent, please contact Leila at Samasource. I’ll be revealing the two projects under production at Samasource next month. So check back on a full-post on both projects next month.