If early stage companies are supposed to change the world, then Crowdflower and Samasource are model organizations. This morning the two are launching the Give Work iPhone application, a tool that empowers users to increase training and jobs for Kenyan refugees. Rather than playing games or winning badges from location-based services, iPhone users can spend their free time helping others. The joint iPhone application asks users to verify remote work deliverables in order to speed payment to those in need.
ReadWriteWeb covered Samasource in early September at the Facebook Fund Rev event. The nonprofit organization demoed a Facebook App that allows application developers to outsource their quality testing to at-risk individuals in countries like Kenya, Cameroon and Ghana. Meanwhile, CrowdFlower is best known as a cloud-based work platform where companies offer Mechanical Turk-style jobs to online laborers. The company launched at this year’s TechCrunch 50 event and describes itself as a “labor as a service” provider.
The shared iPhone project is CrowdFlower’s first service involving at-risk communities. The project will allow iPhone app users to work with Samasource’s refugee work program in Dadaab, Kenya. After Kenyan workers complete a simple task such as checking pictures for copyrights, an iPhone user then double checks the worker’s accuracy. By using the application during your daily train or bus commute, you can help improve the lives of numerous workers by endorsing the quality of their work, elevating their career status and speeding the delivery of daily wages.
Says Samasource’s Leila Chirayath Janah, “Working with CrowdFlower and iPhone users, the refugees we train in Kenya develop portable work skills and receive higher wages. By training women, youth and refugees to complete paying remote tasks, we give them the ability to build livelihoods and become part of the digital economy.”
To check out the application, download it from the App Store.
