Skilllab is a social business developing technology-based solutions to empower the integration of refugees into local labour markets. Skilllab develops software technology that captures the employable skills of disadvantaged job seekers such as refugees and migrants and matches their skills to local labour markets. They are motivated by a belief that the dignity of independence through work is a fundamental right that functioning labour markets should provide.
Shiffer is a peer-to-peer online logistics platform that connects travelers willing and able to transport physical shipments with individuals needing to ship documents. The company was founded by Azhar Al Madani and a team of refugees living in Iraq, Turkey, and the Netherlands. They were motivated by their difficult experiences maintaining accurate documentation across borders. The prohibitive costs of sending led them to establish Shiffer. Their goal is to reduce costs and shipment times, while lowering carbon emissions for transportation by finding more natural synergies.
SEP is a Jordanian social enterprise sourcing and producing high quality fashion and lifestyle accessories hand-embroidered by refugees in the Jerash and Azraq camps. Established in 2017 by Roberta Ventura, and working in partnership with the UNHCR, SEP is transforming the lives of over 500 Palestinian and Syrian refugee artisans living in Jordan. The SEP artists benefit from above-market rates and performance-related bonuses while producing fashion items of superior quality. The artists are at the core of SEP’s business model, providing creative input on all the company’s designs and products.
Pawame believes that affordable, modern energy is the surest foundation for financial empowerment and the gateway to limitless opportunity. Pawame sells off-grid solar home systems across Kenya and to refugees in Kakuma who are already paying for dirty and expensive kerosene or diesel. The solar home systems work on a 19 month rent-to-own model with low daily payments that are cheaper than the solutions that they displace. Pawame customers benefit from improved indoor air quality, longer productive light hours for commerce and study, connectivity, time savings, and cheaper energy. But energy is just the beginning. By tracking repayment, Pawame can confidently offer further loans and product financing to their established customers. Pawame is currently seeking debt financing to expand their operations.
NeedsList is a global B2B marketplace connecting local non-profits working with displaced people with INGOs and corporate donors to create efficiency and transparency in the humanitarian aid system. We offer real-time information sharing and tracking tools to first responders from vetted charities and make this data available to the private sector in order to engage their communities in direct, measurable, authentic giving, to meet real needs for real people with their products, services and talent.
Established in 2015 by two graduates of Colombia’s School of International and Public Affairs, NaTakallam is an award-winning social enterprise that connects refugees and displaced people to remote work opportunities in the language sector. To date, more than 150 displaced persons have self-generated $520,000 through translation jobs or by connecting with over 4500 unique users, who sign up as individuals or through K-12 and university partnerships (including Yale, Georgetown, Columbia, and others). NaTakallam has been featured in dozens of media outlets, notably in Fast Company, PBS, NPR, Al Jazeera and Reuters and by the UNHCR in a recent video. Translation services are delivered by refugees in 9+ languages (past clients include the International Rescue Committee, Buzzfeed, and Malala Fund). Conversation partners are also available to join your next company brown bag, or any other kind of event, as a virtual guest speaker to give a personal, first-hand perspective on the global refugee crisis.
A.I. Forte is a Canadian social enterprise which seeks to develop telecommunication platforms as well as blockchain encrypted reference systems to be used by aid agencies, governments, and forcibly displaced people more broadly. The team comes with a wealth of experience in digital security, communications, and health technology. Prior to establishing A.I. Forte, the founding team was responsible for the design and implementation of Dubai Ports World’s supply chain application stack, ATF Health Canada’s security stack, as well as identity management solutions in the eHealth domain for a provincial government in Canada.
734 Coffee is a social enterprise, providing ethically sourced, fair trade, naturally farmed coffee from Gambela, Ethiopia, a region which currently hosts over 700,000 refugees from South Sudan. 734 Coffee is led by Manyang Reath Kher, who spent much of his young life in a refugee camp in Gambela, before eventually earning a degree in International Law from the University of Richmond. It was there that he founded the Humanity Helping Sudan Project, a non-profit which works in close coordination with 734 Coffee. Currently 80% of profits are used to provide scholarships and education programs for refugees in Sudan.
BizGees is an innovation driven enterprise using alternative finance for financial inclusion dedicated to improving refugees’ access to the financial tools they need to succeed. They are a born global finTech startup supporting two different refugee communities. One community is in Northern Pakistan where 2.5 million people experienced displacement. The second community is in Uganda and Kenya.
Since winning the 2016 Refugee Challenge organized by What Design Can Do, UNHCR and Ikea Foundation, Makers Unite has experienced tremendous growth as a social enterprise dedicated to creating and empowering a network of refugee designers and locals working together to forge a more inclusive future. They work to empower newcomers to Europe by engaging their creativity to produce innovative products and fashion items. Examples include handbags made from recycled life-vests worn by refugees from the shores of Greece, and a collaboration between Syrian soap makers and a Dutch ceramic company Cor Unum.
Founded by Mursal Hedayat, a refugee from Afghanistan living in the UK, and Guillemette Dejean, a Y Combinator alum, Chatterbox is an online language learning platform designed and delivered by refugees. Language skills and cultural knowledge are increasingly necessary for professionals in the globalized economy. The Chatterbox digital platform uniquely combines AI-powered self-study courses alongside algorithmically matched native language coaches from the refugee community. Coaches are paired with students based on shared professional backgrounds and interests, achieving industry topping completion rates and unbeatable relevance in learning. On the app, engineers are learning Arabic from fellow engineers and aid workers are learning French from medical doctors. And while Chatterbox clients learn, their refugee coaches earn a living, improve their employability, and reclaim their professional identities. Classes can be offered one-on-one, in small groups, to whole classrooms, or for organizations who purchase lessons on behalf of their members.
Sparrow was founded in 2014 by a group of social entrepreneurs determined to end digital poverty and connect people across the globe using the company’s product-as-impact model.
