From Dadaab To Silicon Valley
Somali refugee Fowsia Hashi used to be a trainer for Samasource
How Silicon Valley outsources work to African refugees
By Stephanie Hegarty
BBC World Service
An innovative organisation in San Francisco is working to link the world's digital giants such as Ask.com and Facebook with the poorest and most marginalised people on the planet.
In Dadaab, northern Kenya, lies the largest refugee camp in the world. There, 300,000 displaced people battle for the resources to survive, relying for the most part on hand-outs and aid.
In the middle of the vast and dusty site is a small hut filled with computers where an industrious group of people gather to connect to the outside world.
Working with a US-based non-profit organisation, Samasource, these refugees have been trained in basic computer skills, enabling them to do digitally based work for a company thousands of miles away.
Samasource aims to help provide impoverished people by giving them one of the most basic of human rights: The right to work.
Set up by Harvard graduate Leila Chirayath Janah three years ago, it provides a bridge between the hugely profitable firms of Silicon Valley and slums and refugee camps in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
"We've overlooked the fact that the four billion people who live below $3 (£1.85) a day have talent and ability," says Ms Janah. "They can be producers in the global economy."
She has modelled Samasource on the assembly lines of Henry Ford in which low-skilled workers were equipped to build complex machines.
By training workers to do basic computer-based jobs, she argues, the world's most disadvantaged people can work for digital behemoths like Google, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Before Samasource came to the camp, most of its residents had barely touched a computer.
Through Samasource's training a group have learned to perform business verification tasks for a company in California's Silicon Valley, receiving payment through their mobile phones.