2010 Social Innovation Fellow Leila Janah founded Samasource to bring digitally connected jobs to people living in poverty, providing computer-based microwork via the Internet. Her philosophy: “Handouts are not going to end global poverty, but work — real work — just might.”
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Thought provoking. Something that I would like to better understand. Concept of- I believeMs. Janah used the term (algorithm). I know that it relates to math but I’ll be honest, I am somewhat confused but there seems to be great potential. Does the person receiving the job have to be very proficient in math and totally understand computers. Is this something primarily for the educated youth or can it be easily tought to the masses?
This is not a new concept — certainly not ground-breaking. Large outsourcing companies in India have had centers in rural areas/villages, etc. for years (to train and employ the poor) as part of their CSR/philanthropic efforts within India. They have been doing it without much fanfare for years (as have some nonprofit organizations). There is definitely room for more people doing that work, and I think that’s great, but I am a bit wary of the ones who are so focused on self-promotion!
I’m sorry, what did she say?
@Charles: People can perform small, simple tasks that are difficult to have a computer automatically do. For instance: Let’s say you are a scientist on a small budget and have taken 50000 photographs of something happening to a human blood cell. Spotting it could be as easy as looking for a dot attaching to a blob, something that is easy for a person, but more difficult for a computer, if not impossible with today’s algorithms (meaning technique). Earlier, this meant the scientist would have to go through all the pictures herself, but with Leila Janah’s and similar efforts, one can now simply send five pictures to each "employee" with a simple instruction of what to look for, and have a button below saying "does this picture look like the example? Yes/no." Upon answering, the participant receives $1, for about 5 minutes of work. All the replies are sent back o the scientist, who will suddenly have simplified her task tremendously. You are doing similar work by filling in the captcha code below. For many tasks, it doesn’t really have to be more technical than this.
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