With a forcibly displaced population of 65 million and growing worldwide, many countries struggle with difficult social and economic challenges. Can platforms offer a solution? Following my summer work with ReDI School in Berlin, I explore what role platforms can play in improving the wellbeing of refugees residing in refugee camps and cities around the world.

1. Can Refugees Save Platforms?
Raz Godelnik | Parsons School of Design | @godelnik
2017 Platform Cooperativism Conference, November 10-11, 2017

2. ReDI School
Berlin
The New School
New York
Zaatari Refugee
Camp
Jordan

3. Credit: NINA KECK / VPR
How might we create income for refugees in Jordan?

4. Source:Flyktningregnskapet2016

5. “Today, more than 65 million people – the largest
number in decades - are living as refugees or are
internally displaced, uprooted from their homes in
search of safety, and often struggling to access
the basic means of survival.”
- Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

6. Can platforms help?
Refugee camps:
● movement/work restrictions
● limited employment opportunities
● high transaction costs
● economic inefficiencies
● environment that is ripe to predatory
pricing
● incentives to start local businesses
catering to people living inside the camp
● people are able to create value, but don’t
have ways to deliver/exchange it
● limited capabilities
Platforms:
● overcome physical challenges/
constraints
● expanded opportunities
● lower transaction costs
● eliminate market friction
● provide access to products, services,
service providers, etc.
● facilitate efficient value exchanges
● network effects

7. “Adapt technological platforms for entrepreneurship
and job-seeking to the refugee context.” (Accenture)

9. “A refugee camp is a combination of the needs of the individual,
and the demands of a complex urban network.” (Julia Slater)

10. Is platform coop a better framework to
create solutions for refugees?

11. Can platform co-ops help?
Refugee camps:
● need to form new communities
● unique and amplified urban issues
● need to have a sense of security
● tension between short-term design
and long-term stay (a permanently
temporary state)
● imposed and institutionalized
hopelessness (“This isn’t living; it’s just
existing”)
● social/cultural isolation
Platform coops:
● strengthen communities
● increase social capital
● provide a sense of ownership and
independence
● values-driven (equality, self-responsibility,
democracy and solidarity)
● benefit local economy & urban environment
● applying human-centered approach to
technology
● relationship building with hosting
communities

14. Can refugee camps create opportunities
for platform co-ops?
Image credit: BBMG

16. Thank you!
godelnir@newschool.edu
twitter: @godelnik