This annual report outlines the key accomplishments and milestones Samasource achieved in 2011 with the generous support of our funders, donors, partners and clients. For more information, please visit www.samasource.org.
Making the Case for Impact Sourcing - SamasourceLeila Janah
Impact Sourcing is a new type of business process outsourcing (BPO) that aims to create jobs for individuals with limited opportunity in rural or economically depressed communities. There are a number of new studies which show the significant business benefits for companies that partner with Impact Sourcing providers, including significant cost savings and proven social benefits. Additionally, Impact Sourcing can provide high-quality, reliable services at prices that are at least competitive with traditional BPO centers and, in some cases, almost 40 percent lower than what traditional providers can offer. It is estimated that 40% of companies currently outsourcing to traditional BPOs will allocate at least 25% of their budget toward Impact Sourcing providers by 2015. As a pioneer in Impact Sourcing, Samasource has connected over 3,700 poor women and youth across 9 countries to nearly $3 million in living wages. This work is sourced from some of the world's biggest enterprises including Google, Microsoft, Intuit, and LinkedIn. In this presentation, we explain what Impact Sourcing is, the benefits to clients and beneficiaries, and the forecasted growth of the industry.
This Impact Report outlines the methodology we use for measuring our impact as well as our results through December 2012. Please e-mail us at info@samasource.org if you have any questions about the data contained within this report.
This annual report outlines the key accomplishments and milestones Samasource achieved in 2011 with the generous support of our funders, donors, partners and clients. For more information, please visit www.samasource.org.
Making the Case for Impact Sourcing - SamasourceLeila Janah
Impact Sourcing is a new type of business process outsourcing (BPO) that aims to create jobs for individuals with limited opportunity in rural or economically depressed communities. There are a number of new studies which show the significant business benefits for companies that partner with Impact Sourcing providers, including significant cost savings and proven social benefits. Additionally, Impact Sourcing can provide high-quality, reliable services at prices that are at least competitive with traditional BPO centers and, in some cases, almost 40 percent lower than what traditional providers can offer. It is estimated that 40% of companies currently outsourcing to traditional BPOs will allocate at least 25% of their budget toward Impact Sourcing providers by 2015. As a pioneer in Impact Sourcing, Samasource has connected over 3,700 poor women and youth across 9 countries to nearly $3 million in living wages. This work is sourced from some of the world's biggest enterprises including Google, Microsoft, Intuit, and LinkedIn. In this presentation, we explain what Impact Sourcing is, the benefits to clients and beneficiaries, and the forecasted growth of the industry.
This Impact Report outlines the methodology we use for measuring our impact as well as our results through December 2012. Please e-mail us at info@samasource.org if you have any questions about the data contained within this report.
Nonprofit Technology Conference: Empowering the Poor Through Remote WorkLeila Janah
Presentation made to the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, CA. Moderator: Barbara Kelly, Ammado; Scott Sugiura, Give2Asia; and Tracy Iseler, Accenture
Remote work can help end poverty. Learn how in this presentation by Leila Chirayath Janah of Samasource. For more information, visit www.sourceoutpoverty.org
Maruthi Prithivirajan, Head of ASEAN & IN Solution Architecture, Neo4j
Get an inside look at the latest Neo4j innovations that enable relationship-driven intelligence at scale. Learn more about the newest cloud integrations and product enhancements that make Neo4j an essential choice for developers building apps with interconnected data and generative AI.
Pushing the limits of ePRTC: 100ns holdover for 100 daysAdtran
At WSTS 2024, Alon Stern explored the topic of parametric holdover and explained how recent research findings can be implemented in real-world PNT networks to achieve 100 nanoseconds of accuracy for up to 100 days.
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
GraphSummit Singapore | The Art of the Possible with Graph - Q2 2024Neo4j
Neha Bajwa, Vice President of Product Marketing, Neo4j
Join us as we explore breakthrough innovations enabled by interconnected data and AI. Discover firsthand how organizations use relationships in data to uncover contextual insights and solve our most pressing challenges – from optimizing supply chains, detecting fraud, and improving customer experiences to accelerating drug discoveries.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 6DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 6. In this session, we will cover Test Automation with generative AI and Open AI.
UiPath Test Automation with generative AI and Open AI webinar offers an in-depth exploration of leveraging cutting-edge technologies for test automation within the UiPath platform. Attendees will delve into the integration of generative AI, a test automation solution, with Open AI advanced natural language processing capabilities.
Throughout the session, participants will discover how this synergy empowers testers to automate repetitive tasks, enhance testing accuracy, and expedite the software testing life cycle. Topics covered include the seamless integration process, practical use cases, and the benefits of harnessing AI-driven automation for UiPath testing initiatives. By attending this webinar, testers, and automation professionals can gain valuable insights into harnessing the power of AI to optimize their test automation workflows within the UiPath ecosystem, ultimately driving efficiency and quality in software development processes.
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into integrating generative AI.
2. Understanding how this integration enhances test automation within the UiPath platform
3. Practical demonstrations
4. Exploration of real-world use cases illustrating the benefits of AI-driven test automation for UiPath
Topics covered:
What is generative AI
Test Automation with generative AI and Open AI.
UiPath integration with generative AI
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
GridMate - End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid...ThomasParaiso2
End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid regressions. In this session, we share our journey building an E2E testing pipeline for GridMate components (LWC and Aura) using Cypress, JSForce, FakerJS…
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
Nonprofit Technology Conference: Empowering the Poor Through Remote WorkLeila Janah
Presentation made to the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, CA. Moderator: Barbara Kelly, Ammado; Scott Sugiura, Give2Asia; and Tracy Iseler, Accenture
Remote work can help end poverty. Learn how in this presentation by Leila Chirayath Janah of Samasource. For more information, visit www.sourceoutpoverty.org
Maruthi Prithivirajan, Head of ASEAN & IN Solution Architecture, Neo4j
Get an inside look at the latest Neo4j innovations that enable relationship-driven intelligence at scale. Learn more about the newest cloud integrations and product enhancements that make Neo4j an essential choice for developers building apps with interconnected data and generative AI.
Pushing the limits of ePRTC: 100ns holdover for 100 daysAdtran
At WSTS 2024, Alon Stern explored the topic of parametric holdover and explained how recent research findings can be implemented in real-world PNT networks to achieve 100 nanoseconds of accuracy for up to 100 days.
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
GraphSummit Singapore | The Art of the Possible with Graph - Q2 2024Neo4j
Neha Bajwa, Vice President of Product Marketing, Neo4j
Join us as we explore breakthrough innovations enabled by interconnected data and AI. Discover firsthand how organizations use relationships in data to uncover contextual insights and solve our most pressing challenges – from optimizing supply chains, detecting fraud, and improving customer experiences to accelerating drug discoveries.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 6DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 6. In this session, we will cover Test Automation with generative AI and Open AI.
UiPath Test Automation with generative AI and Open AI webinar offers an in-depth exploration of leveraging cutting-edge technologies for test automation within the UiPath platform. Attendees will delve into the integration of generative AI, a test automation solution, with Open AI advanced natural language processing capabilities.
Throughout the session, participants will discover how this synergy empowers testers to automate repetitive tasks, enhance testing accuracy, and expedite the software testing life cycle. Topics covered include the seamless integration process, practical use cases, and the benefits of harnessing AI-driven automation for UiPath testing initiatives. By attending this webinar, testers, and automation professionals can gain valuable insights into harnessing the power of AI to optimize their test automation workflows within the UiPath ecosystem, ultimately driving efficiency and quality in software development processes.
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into integrating generative AI.
2. Understanding how this integration enhances test automation within the UiPath platform
3. Practical demonstrations
4. Exploration of real-world use cases illustrating the benefits of AI-driven test automation for UiPath
Topics covered:
What is generative AI
Test Automation with generative AI and Open AI.
UiPath integration with generative AI
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
GridMate - End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid...ThomasParaiso2
End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid regressions. In this session, we share our journey building an E2E testing pipeline for GridMate components (LWC and Aura) using Cypress, JSForce, FakerJS…
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Sudheer Mechineni, Head of Application Frameworks, Standard Chartered Bank
Discover how Standard Chartered Bank harnessed the power of Neo4j to transform complex data access challenges into a dynamic, scalable graph database solution. This keynote will cover their journey from initial adoption to deploying a fully automated, enterprise-grade causal cluster, highlighting key strategies for modelling organisational changes and ensuring robust disaster recovery. Learn how these innovations have not only enhanced Standard Chartered Bank’s data infrastructure but also positioned them as pioneers in the banking sector’s adoption of graph technology.
14. Person on the ground
Mission 4636 In Haiti Info
Emergency Response to the Outside Haiti Action
Haitian Earthquake
SMS
Digicel
Comcel
SMS Info by
SMS
USCG
translation site
phase1: volunteers
phase 2: paid workers ICRC
Person Finder
tech Translated
platform SMS with Public
volunteer
category,
coordinates,
+
+ worker mobile # Aid
sourcing
Groups
Haitians live in a densely populated country (10 million people on an island smaller than Maryland). 80 percent of them live on less than 1.25 a day. And that’s adjusted for purchasing power -- so that’s what 1.25 would buy you in the US in 2005.
Before the earthquake, the unemployment rate in Haiti was 70 percent. This is likely the highest unemployment in the Western Hemisphere.
But interestingly, more than 50 percent of Haitians are literate in French, and a growing number of young people, thanks to the strong Haitian diaspora in the US and the power of social networks, speak English and have good communication skills.
The differential between this increased human capacity and a lack of decent jobs is tragic. Let me take a minute and walk you through some of the economic factors that made the recent earthquake so devastating.
With so few jobs available, most Haitians get by through subsistence agriculture. Unfortunately, over the last two centuries, much of Haiti’s land has been ruined.
People are stuck in a vicious circle: they sow poor quality traditional seeds, which are often food grains purchased on the local markets, which have low crop yields. The lack of revenue resulting from these current farming methods then leads people to seek other ways to extract an income from the land. Trees are one of those resources -- traditional tree crops produce items such as charcoal, post-wood, planks and low quality fruits. But with a country so densely populated, when everyone cuts down a tree, you get this:
Anyone who’s been to Haiti is shocked by how few trees there are compared to the Dominican Republic, which sits on the other half of the island.
With farming cash crops out of the picture, Haitians turn to other types of work.
This is a common sight: instead of working a part-time job that builds his skills, this boy sells mirrors by the side of the road to tourists. He makes a few cents on each one, and is forced to lug a huge bundle of these things around all day.
This needn’t be the case. If 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, and 50 percent are literate, that leaves 30 percent that could stand to benefit from alternative livelihoods that tap their skills as knowledge workers.
Let me pause for a minute here and tell you about samasource.
We’re a San Francisco nonprofit founded on the premise that good work is the best answer to poverty. Luckily, we live in a time where more and more work is done digitally, by a distributed group of people connected via fiber optic cable. In 2005, Thomas Friedman made this point in his book The World is Flat. Since then, outsourcing has grown to an over $200 billion dollar industry and moved into every segment of business operations, from the digitization of medical records to financial consulting for investment banks.
But here’s where the story gets more nuanced. Work has not only gone digital, it has become more and more task-based. Platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and our business partner CrowdFlower, take big projects and break them into little pieces, or microwork, that can be completed by anyone, anywhere who is connected to a browser. Microwork is real work for real companies, and can involve a range of commonly outsourced business needs, from scraping data from websites for lead generation, to moderating photo or video content.
I believe that microwork will be the next big opportunity for the world’s poor, particularly as more and more of them get online.
One thing that surprised me in learning about Haiti is that the one type of infrastructure that wasn’t devastated by the quake was the country’s telecommunications networks. This is a photo taken on a drive up to a rural area -- you can see that the cell towers fared pretty well.
This is a photo of Port-au-Prince a day after the quake.
amidst all of the awful devastation....
....
...there was hope in the tens of cybercafes like this one
and in the fact that the nation’s communications infrastructure was alive and well. This is a line outside Digicel, the Tmobile of Haiti, a few weeks after the quake.
This was tremendously exciting for Samasource.
Believe it or not, twenty minutes before the earthquake, we had emailed an organization called 1,000 Jobs, in Mirebalais, Haiti to accept them into our work program. 1,000 Jobs is a program of Dr. Paul Farmer’s organization, Partners in Health.
Given the crisis, we thought they’d decline our offer. But a day after Port-au-Prince was leveled, we got a call from their director telling us that job creation is more important now than ever for the long-term rebuilding of Haiti. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes and livelihoods and are flooding neighboring towns. We need to do a lot more than giving men fish; we need to give them the skills to catch their own.
Luckily, we got a call from Frontline SMS and Ushahidi asking us if we could help them meet a huge need for Haitian Creole speakers. In the wake of the crisis, a free phone number, 4636, was established to allow people on the ground to text their requests for medical care, food, water, and shelter from any cell phone and receive aid.
This system functions like a smart 911 service, and to give you an idea of how effective it is, one woman actually texted as she went into labor, and within 10 minutes had an aid worker by her side delivering her baby.
How Mission 4636-- a consortium of nonprofits, governmental organizations, and companies-- collaborated after the Haitian earthquake to provide emergency SMS translation to tens of thousands of people.
Here’s a feed from the early days of the project showing the volume of texts coming in from different parts of the country. What was needed was an immediate solution to classify these texts in real time.
So Samasource partnered with the Mission 4636 team to plug a team of workers at 1,000 Jobs into a translation engine powered by one of our partners. This is the interface our workers see from Haiti.
You can see a text message in Kreyol at the top, and instructions for the worker to translate and geotag it underneath.
We were lucky enough to receive funding from the state department to train the workers in our center and pay them to run these translations for the next six months, after which time we hope to receive other contracts from customers needing French and English translation and data services.
These are some photos from our training a few weeks back, which took place on a Sunday evening after these young people had waited all day to receive us.
Here’s our local team leader on the project,
and here’s me trying to teach people about CrowdFlower while the netbooks are being set up. At one point the power went out, and we were really touched to see that that didn’t phase anyone -- they all calmly took out their cell phones and read by the light of those LCD screens.
What’s so exciting about this project is that rather than paying an expatriate or an aid worker to do these translations, we are paying Haitians. And through our partnership with CrowdFlower, we plan to send a lot more work to Haiti after the SMS project dies down. This is the power of technology to fight poverty, both in real time, and in the long term.
I believe this project could scale quickly in other countries. Why not have an SMS-based alternative to 911 that provides employment to local people from rural communities while also addressing a critical need? The US State Department will get a total of $16.4 billion dollars in appropriations over the course of 2010. Let’s make sure some of that goes towards projects like these.