Leila Janah
Leila Janah
Leila Janah is the Founder and CEO of Sama and Laxmi, two companies highlighted on Fast Company’s 2016 Most Innovative Companies list that share a common social mission to end global poverty by giving work to people in need. She is also the co-author of America's Moment: Creating Opportunity in the Connected Age, a book by Rework America: A Markle Initiative...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinesswoman
Date of Birth9 October 1982
CountryUnited States of America
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The perception in Silicon Valley is that if you dress well, you couldn't possibly be smart, or you're in P.R. but couldn't possibly run a company. I remember briefly attempting the Adidas and jeans and sweatshirt over T-shirt look, but I realized I was trying to dress like a young tech geek, and that just wasn't me.
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I really love travelling to places where I get to learn something new about a new group of people or a new place. Learn some history, contemplate some business ideas, and sort of get off the beaten track a little bit.
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In terms of environmental impact, Samasource jobs are very green. Our product is human intelligence, and it's transported through the Internet rather than via carbon-intensive trucking, shipping, and warehousing.
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I own a shameless number of ethnic necklaces acquired at local markets in developing countries or inherited from my grandmother. These have seen me through meetings in Davos and visits to refugee camps.
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We think the way out of poverty is to view the poor as producers, and the Internet is probably the most efficient tool we have for tapping this capacity. Because you don't need roads. You don't need customs officials who are friendly. You don't need to manage shipping and delivery schedules. You don't have to worry about tariffs.
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Every woman that dies or loses her baby on a threadbare cot in the heart of Uganda, while her sisters on the other side of the world enjoy first-class care, is a threat to our collective humanity.
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At Samasource, a company I founded in 2008, we train people living in poverty from Kenya to California to develop and market 21st century digital skills to adapt to new economic realities.
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We have people from places like Oracle, Microsoft, Intuit. Sama plays a huge role in why people leave lucrative careers to join a social enterprise.
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Using the Internet to secure employment is as vital to a construction worker as it is to a software engineer.
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Traditional charity is still fairly focused on how it makes donors feel as opposed to outcomes for people that need help.
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The problem in a lot of low-income countries is that people take out loans to go and get degrees, which are then irrelevant in the job market.
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The challenges that the homeless face aren't dissimilar to those in developing countries.
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My personal style comes from jugaad, a Hindi word meaning doing more with less.
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Most of us working on poverty alleviation simply want to know, 'How much poverty can I reduce for every dollar I donate?'