Lewas In Tech

Through our solution, we will integrate disadvantaged female youth into the digital economy by providing affordable digital literacy training and accelerate the digital momentum in the South Pacific, Caribbean and Latin America by creating a coworking ecosystem for cross-collaboration amongst our digitally literate female youth, local entrepreneurs, and digital nomads.

Most countries in the South Pacific Islands, Caribbean, and Latin America regions share similar characteristics:

(1) adverse economic impacts from climate change due to a labor force reliant on agriculture, fishing and tourism

(2) lack of integration into the digital economy

(3) an immature entrepreneurial ecosystem

We recognize that together these characteristics prevent youth from all backgrounds from thriving in the 21st century, an age that demands digital literacy in order to have upward economic mobility.

Through Lewas in Tech (which translates from Fijian to “Girls in Tech”) we enable young women to become digitally literate and effectively integrate them into the digital economy. Our model combines microfinance, digital learning, impact sourcing, and coworking to tackle all three problems. With one co-founder from Fiji, we plan to pilot our program in the country’s capital, Suva, and envision kickstarting a digital workforce revolution in all three regions as we scale.

Microfinance

We will prepare disadvantaged female youth for the global digital economy by providing digital skills training funded through 0% interest microfinance student loans. As former Kiva Fellows, all three founders have experienced the potential of this model first hand in the field.

Digital Learning

Our Lewas will access digital training through an online platform. Treehouse will be the platform used in the pilot because of their broad curriculum. We will partner with other platforms if recommended at the end of the pilot through evaluation.

Impact Sourcing

After training is complete, we will offer employment and source paid digital services projects for them. Revenue from these projects will be used to provide a higher living wage for our Lewas and to sustain our operations.

Coworking

The space used for training and employment will also function as a paid membership coworking space that fosters cross-collaboration between digital nomads, local entrepreneurs and our Lewas. 

Our solution solves the problem of disadvantaged females under 24 from low socio-economic (income, wealth and education) backgrounds being ill-equipped with 21st century skills and therefore being an unprepared workforce. We have chosen our target regions for deployment by identifying communities where the current workforce is reliant on agriculture, fishing and tourism while being highly susceptible to climate change. Wrapping these together, our solution removes reliance on industries adversely affected by climate change by equipping disadvantaged female youth with digital skills, providing employment and fostering entrepreneurship in the community.

Evidence of impact by Kiva, The Fletcher School, Samasource and Endeavor support our microfinance, digital learning, impact sourcing and coworking elements, respectively.

Kiva impact reports more than 28,000 education loans, showcasing the ability of microfinance to dismantle barriers to accessing education.

The Fletcher School’s insight that “technology could displace routine jobs and increasing social inequities” show the potential for success and the necessity of digital learning.

Samasource impact reports shares workers increase their income 3.7x through impact sourcing.

Endeavor’s impact statistics show 650,000 high-quality jobs created by Endeavor Entrepreneurs, highlighting the value of creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Building on our theory of change, the long-term impact we will create is:

• Dismantled barriers to accessing education for disadvantaged female youth by deploying microloans at 0% interest, 12-month grace period during training and 12-month repayment term at the end of training

• A digitally literate female youth workforce by deploying access to laptops and a quality digital learning platform

• Higher living wages for our Lewas through partnerships with organizations who face high tech demands

• A bustling entrepreneurial hub where the growth of a local digital economy begins by deploying a physical coworking space with access to reliable internet

Track the completion of training curriculum on Treehouse.

All women have either accepted employment from Lewas in Tech or found relevant employment locally. - 10 female youth from disadvantaged backgrounds have developed digital skills and are integrated in the digital economy

Each month repayments are tracked, collected and reported by a dedicated program administrator. - 10 microfinance loans at 0% interest are repaid in full

The utilization of the space will be measured by membership revenue, number of collaboration events that have taken place at the space and number of projects where digital nomads and/or local entrepreneurs have collaborated with our Lewas. - Coworking space is utilized by digital nomads and local entrepreneurs

Lewas In Tech uniqueness stems from its hybrid business model that weaves together microfinance, digital learning, impact sourcing, and coworking. No organization encompasses all four of these. We have taken successful elements from Kiva, WeWork, Samasource, and Endeavor and rolled it into one sustainable and high-impact model. Our model not only prepares disadvantaged female youth for a future in the digital workforce, but also enables economic mobility. This model has the ability to create a chain reaction that can accelerate an economy’s digital momentum and create an ecosystem that encourages innovation and investment into the local economy.

We have weaved various impact models together to create one solution that starts, ends, involves, and impacts disadvantaged female youth. Following the Stanford d.school human-centered design methodology we began by empathizing with this cohort; defining the design challenge in light of their needs, wishes and pain points; and ideating through a co-design process to develop our solution. We will use the methodology throughout the pilot by continuously testing and iterating our hybrid model based on the experience of our Lewas as they journey through our unique process for solving the challenge.

The pilot will deploy digital training through Treehouse for ten disadvantaged female youth in Suva, Fiji. We will select candidates who cannot afford university, have scored well in high school examinations and have an interest in the digital workforce. Treehouse membership is easily afforded through an interest-free microloan for each Lewa, which we will crowdfund in the pilot phase. Repayment of the loan will begin after training is complete so that Lewas are employed and can afford repayments.

In the early phases of researching and piloting our solution, we will be reliant on grant funding from organizations such as MSFT Philanthropies, Australia/New Zealand/Fiji Government Grants, Google Grants etc. Funding from these organizations will be used to cover salaries, rent, utilities, marketing, internet/tech costs, furniture and fittings. In line with our hybrid model, we will use microloans to fund membership costs to Treehouse for Lewas in our pilot.

At the end of our pilot phase (2 years) we will be less reliant on grant funding based on the assumption that our primary sources of revenue will be established. They are:

• Coworking space revenue

• Digital Projects revenue from partners

These revenue streams will sustain us through the growth phase (4 years) and onto the scale phase (4 years) as we deploy our solution across untapped countries in the South Pacific, Caribbean and Latin America.

The key limitation to the success of our solution is a lack of pre-existing relationships with partners who can provide digital work for our Lewas once they have completed digital training. Although our wider networks include connections at potential partner organizations with a high demand for remote digital work such as Microsoft, Facebook, Fiji Airways, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, we anticipate a large time investment in forming relationships with key decision makers and tailoring our value proposition to each potential partner.

Solving global problems is an endeavor that is personal to our team who have had exposure to social issues through living and working in India, Fiji, Kyrgyzstan, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. We will use the mentoring, connections and guidance provided by Solve to establish partnerships that support our solution’s technical, expertise and operational needs. In particular, we are looking for expertise through the Solve network in digital learning and impact sourcing in order to point out and help fill in the gaps in our solution. Becoming a Solver will give our team the confidence and ability to launch a successful pilot.

No partners have been established at this time.

Samasource - competing to impact source digital work (primary revenue for us) from similar partners