Use Your iPhone to Help Someone in Need

You know that you can use your iPhone to play entertaining games, take amazing photos, compose original music, and keep track of your finances. Now you can use your phone to help a refugee develop job skills that will help them earn a living and improve their quality of life.

CrowdFlower, a San Francisco-based company that offers crowd sourcing services, has teamed up with Samasource, a non-profit organization working to bring online jobs to refugees in Kenya and other poverty-stricken people around the world. Together they have created an app called Give Work. It’s a simple but brilliant idea. A company hires CrowdFlower to complete an online task, such as gathering email addresses for financial aid offices at a large number of universities, or selecting photographs for a wedding album from the photographers proofs. Samasource assigns the task to a worker, and the task is also sent to the Give Work app. You select the task from the list in Give Work and complete it as well, and the refugee’ work is checked against it. They are then given further training and work based on the results of this cross-checking. They learn and improve their skills, and you get to help.

This kind of innovation is what makes me love technology. For a few minutes a day, I can complete some simple tasks and make a difference in the life of someone on the other side of the world. How cool is that? Give Work is free in the app store.

Here’s a video of a couple of the refugees benefiting from online jobs and training from Samasource: