What if you could help end global poverty in your lifetime?
Tech entrepreneur Leila Janah speaks about her new book "Give Work"
Wednesday, October 4, 201711:30 AM
UCLA Anderson School of Management
Collins Center, Room A201
ABOUT THE TALK
In her book, Give Work, social entrepreneur and founder, Leila Janah, offers a much-needed solution to solving extreme poverty: redirect aid money to social enterprises that give dignified, steady, fair-wage work to low-income people, and incentivize big companies to choose suppliers that use this model. Her social business, Samasource, connects people living below the poverty line–on roughly $2 a day–to digital work for major tech companies. To date, the organization has provided over $10 million in direct income to tens of thousands of people the world had written off, dramatically altering the trajectory of their entire communities, for the better.
Join us for a conversation with Leila Janah, where she'll discuss her upcoming book and what she's learned building Samasource and LXMI, two ventures that share a common social mission.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Want to end poverty for good? Samasource founder and entrepreneur Leila Janah has the solution—give work, not aid.
“Living-wage digital work targeted to the world’s poorest people is a transformational force for good. Leila’s pioneering work in this realm is as instructive as it is inspiring. An essential read!” — Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn; coauthor of The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age
“An audacious, inspiring, and practical book. Leila shows how it’s possible to build a successful business that lifts people out of poverty—not by giving them money but by giving them work. It’s required reading for anyone who’s passionate about solving real problems.” —Adam Grant, author of Give and Take and Originals; coauthor (with Sheryl Sandberg) of Option B
Despite trillions of dollars in Western aid, 2.8 billion people worldwide still struggle in abject poverty. Yet the world’s richest countries continue to send money–mostly to governments–targeting the symptoms, rather than the root causes of poverty. We need a better solution.
In Give Work, Leila Janah offers a much-needed solution to solving poverty: redirect aid money to social enterprises that give dignified, steady, fair-wage work to low-income people, and incentivize big companies to choose suppliers that use this model. Her social business, Samasource, connects people living below the poverty line–on roughly $2 a day–to digital work for major tech companies. To date, the organization has provided over $10 million in direct income to tens of thousands of people the world had written off, dramatically altering the trajectory of their entire communities, for the better.
Janah and her team go into the world’s poorest regions–from refugee camps in Kenya to the Mississippi Delta in Arkansas–and train people to do simple digital work for companies like Google, Walmart, and Microsoft. Janah has tested various Give Work business models in all corners of the world. She shares the poignant stories of many who have benefited from Samasource’s work, and importantly, where the intervention hasn’t worked, and offers a blueprint to fight poverty with an evidence-based, economically sustainable model.
We can end extreme poverty in our lifetimes. Give work, and you give the poorest people on the planet a chance at happiness. Give work, and you give people the freedom to choose how to develop their own communities. Give work, and you create infinite possibilities.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
LEILA JANAH is the founder and CEO of Samasource and LXMI, two ventures focused on using new sourcing techniques to reduce poverty. A Harvard-educated former management consultant, Leila has been profiled by the New York Times, Fast Company, Wired, Forbes, Glamour, Real Simple, and Inc. She was recently named one of Fortune's 40 Under 40, Condé Nast’s Daring 25, and Elle’s 2016 Top Women in Tech, and Samasource was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2016. She lives in San Francisco, California.
Cost : Free and open to the public
Sponsor(s): Burkle Center for International Relations, UCLA Center for Global Management