Presentation made to the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco, CA. Moderator: Barbara Kelly, Ammado; Scott Sugiura, Give2Asia; and Tracy Iseler, Accenture

1. Samasourcing in Africa
Economic Opportunity Through Remote Work
Nonprofit Technology Conference | San Francisco, CA | April 26-28, 2009
Leila Chirayath Janah source responsibly. TM
Founder & CEO, Samasource

2. Meet Jobita.
High school diploma and several
certificates in IT
from Nairobi, Kenya, one of the world’s
poorest cities
Eye for detail and great work ethic,
but has a physical disability in a city with
60% unemployment.
samasource

3. Work cures poverty, & remote work can be done anywhere.
Home Work
Bombay, India Bombay, India
Dharavi, South Asia’s largest slum Call center floor
Over 2.5M people living on 175 hectares Many of India’s 1.5M BPO workers
commute from slum areas
samasource

4. But opportunities aren’t
flowing to where they’re
needed most.
samasource

5. The Problem: staggering talent surplus in Africa
277% of per-capita income spent
on tertiary education in some countries
+
>175M skilled workers in Africa,
rural India and China
+
60% unemployment among
university and high school graduates
= Over 990,000 young people
graduate annually from secondary
and tertiary institutions in Ghana
Talent Surplus and Kenya alone
samasource

6. Notes from the field
“You find people completing
“The dilemma in Kenya, and Africa at large, their university education with
is that the cost of education is getting so honors, and the best they
high...upon finishing, you can’t get a job that can get is a one-off job doing
will offer returns commensurate with what something unrelated to what
you’ve done in school.” they studied. So you end up
going back to the rural area
Freda Adundo, IT degree candidate, Kenya where you grew up to do
farming.”
Peter Kimwele, business
degree candidate, Kenya
“It’s like the Western countries are missing
a generation which they want to import
from Africa...our economy and our brains
are in America. Why can’t people earn an
income while they stay here?”
Martin Ntembe, business degree
candidate, Kenya
samasource

7. Global distribution of remote work
US and India still dominate the market.
Eastern Europe
USA $3.3B
$90B
China & Southeast Asia
$3.1B
Latin America &
India
Caribbean
$17B
$2.9B
Middle East & Africa
$425M
samasource

8. Why Africa is off the map
Most remote work firms in African countries are tiny.
Firms in Africa face numerous barriers to scale, including distribution of talent
and infrastructure.
They may be more expensive. Nonexistent or very costly
payment systems, poor private training options, and higher infrastructure/
transaction costs than larger companies.
Reputation challenges abound. Most remote work comes from
the West. How do you market yourself to clients if you have no professional
network or presence there?
samasource

9. How nonprofits find remote work firms
Advertising is somewhat
effective, but costly for 19%
small firms
Most buyers use
personal and
professional
10%
Web searches and referrals
direct mail seldom
connect service
providers to clients 5%
67%
samasource

10. The Solution
Channel remote work where it’s needed most
$160B services
Small firms Marginalized people
industry
$$$
a small slice of the pie
talented workers with
companies in the poorest few opportunities
places
samasource

11. samasource
Sama means “equal” in Sanskrit. We
are a social business helping bright but
marginalized people in poor regions
find dignified jobs by expanding their
access to markets.
Our method has three parts:
screen
train market
+ select

12. Screening Principles developed by
Principle Purpose
1 Get money into high poverty areas
2 Keep money in high poverty areas
3 Keep money in good companies
Responsible business Service providers
+
Buyers
Academics
Industry
Consultants
samasource

13. Sales strategy
Website / Social Media • < $5K contracts
• Cross-platform distribution with
oDesk, Elance, other partners
• Traffic driven through video
marketing, Facebook, Twitter,
free ad campaigns
Sales Team
• $10K-$100K contracts
• RFPs and word of mouth
• Web-based RFP searches,
conferences, personal
connections (e.g., Benetech)
samasource

14. Pilot results
$140K in contracts 6+ micro-businesses
data entry and website
digitization packages
image
app testing
moderation
video content
captioning updating
research virtual
assistance assistance
samasource

15. Results
Jobita now works to
proofread documents, a
skill he has perfected
thanks to his excellent eye
+ for detail. He participates
in training and enrichment
activities with other recent
graduates.

16. How we do it
Samasource operates as a nonprofit social business.
Raised Earned
$37,500 $140,000
85-90% of earnings
All-volunteer staff
to directly to our
Donated hardware partners
and software
45-85% of their
Frugal to the core revenue supports
staff salaries, training,
and other costs
samasource

17. Case study: Daproim Africa
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
• Run by Steve Muthee, a young entrepreneur
from rural Kenya
• 4 people in 2006 > 15 people now
• Types of services: form and survey processing,
transcription, digitization, web development
• Offers part-time work to local university
students and facilities for disabled workers
• In pipeline: projects for clients including
Benetech, a Bay Area nonprofit, and the African
Braille Center
samasource

18. Case study: Preciss International
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
• Run by two women, Mugure Mugo and Ivy
Kimani
• 5 people in 2002 > 20 now
• Types of services: online research, data
processing, subtitling, transcription
• Offers part-time work and on-site training to
university students, young mothers and recent
graduates
• 30% of revenue goes to floor employees
• In pipeline: projects between $10K and
$100K for clients in the US and UK
samasource

19. How you can support Samasource
• Work with, volunteer or donate to support a Samasource partner
• Network of pre-screened businesses with few opportunities
• Low-cost, high quality services
• Join the discussion. Places to learn more:
• samasource.org + blog
• Samasource groups on oDesk, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Sign or pledge support for the Code of Conduct
• Share your work with others in the nonprofit community
samasource