Match & Teach Me for Integration

Teach refugees and asylum seekers coding through an e-Learning platform, via the smartphones they already have, and then match them with European young entrepreneurs to team up and form tech start-ups, at which we provide incubation and support.

REvive Greece is a registered NGO, with the mission:

• To fight the digital skills gap in Europe.
• To help refugees to integrate into the receiving European countries.

Initially, through our e-Learning platform Match & Teach Me for Integration, the newcomers will take courses on computer programming, via their smartphones.

Then we will provide incubation and support to teams which will be formed by those junior software developers and young European tech entrepreneurs. Alternatively, those students who will choose not to seek an entrepreneurial career will have the chance to be employed in the private sector.

• It is estimated that currently there is a shortage of 400,000 software developers in Europe alone. By teaching coding to the newcomers, we will manage, not only to integrate them into the receiving countries but also to boost their economies through the “Brain Gain” effect.
• The rationale behind the idea of the collaboration is that by combining the knowledge of the local reality from the natives, with the motivation, the resilience and the increased entrepreneurial spirit of the refugees, we strongly believe that highly competitive start-ups could emerge.

Under the suggested solution, refugees, civil, and private sectors, they all win. That is why we truly believe that solution is sustainable and is expected to have a great impact:

• The refugees and asylum seekers will learn a valuable skill and manage to enter the job market, and subsequently, to integrate into the receiving societies.
• The tech startups and the companies in the private sector will have access to a much-needed talent pool.

Track Certificates from Coursera (or any other platform) - 1000 refugees will follow the courses within 1 year

Publicly available info & data from the incubator - 20 junior developers will join the start up incubator within 1 year

Official reports & data - 200 refugees developers find a job in the IT industry within 1 year

• Courses are taught via the smartphones the refugees already have.
• Although there are a few initiatives which deliver training to refugees via MOOCs, our courses are delivered 85% in non-real-time (asynchronous MOOCs) and 15% in real-time (through video chat among volunteer educators from all over the world and groups of students). The real-time interaction, combined with the motivation of the refugees to make a fresh start results to a higher engagement and a steeper learning curve.
• There are a few incubators which deal solely with refugees, but none has investigated the idea of the collaboration between natives and newcomers.

Training for access to the job market and integration of the refugees, the asylum seekers and the forcibly displaced populations will be one of the biggest concerns of the 21 century. Ain’t that enough?

• Students don’t need to have a computer to access our platform. Only the smartphones they already have (UNHCR reports indicate that more than 80% of the population have one).
• Through donations, we provide to them for free the equipment which is needed (Bluetooth keyboards ~ 8$, power banks ~ 7$). With the support of the Greek Mobile Operators’ Association, we also provide for free the 4G SIM cards needed for access to 25 Gb of data/month/student.

Revenues will come from:

• Grants and Subsidies from the E.U. The E.U. gives great priority to solutions regarding the digital skills and the social integration. Last year alone there were at least 14 calls for solutions in these two fields.
• Corporate Donors through their CSR programs We are focused on those that give priority to digital gap elimination, education, and integration of socially excluded teams.
• Charitable Institutions There are several charitable institutions in Greece and the E.U. that donate money to NGOs in order to complete projects within their scope. After all, we have been selected for incubation at HIGGS (the NGO incubator which is funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation – one of the biggest charities in Europe) which provides apprehensive high-level training and support to established and upcoming NGOs.
• Private Donors Private donations and crowdfunding campaigns will be a part of our revenues as well.

The human factor is what we are afraid of, not the technology. In order this solution to succeed there must be an expressed interest and commitment to work hard from the potential beneficiaries, no matter what. But the reality and the living conditions of a refugee might be an obstacle to that. For example, on our 1st pilot test, our hypothesis testing was that all those who expressed a strong interest to follow the courses would manage to attend all of them. Big mistake! No matter who much they wanted to, their everyday life made it prohibitive.

http://revivegreece.org/

https://www.facebook.com/mntmegration

https://twitter.com/MnTMeGration

An element for this solution to succeed is the support from reliable experts who will help to create the optimal curriculum and serve as volunteer educators for the coding courses. That is why we have already successfully tried to establish a bridge of communication with MIT, through the Media Lab (contact: Michail Bletsas, Director of Computing) and project Refugee Learning Accelerator @ Media Lab (contact: Genevieve Barrons). Should we make it become a Solver and have access to this community of leaders, changemakers, and experts, this will ultimately benefit those people who will choose to use the suggested solution.

Yiannis Arapoglou, Founder & CEO of WIDE Services, the Official Moodle Partner in Greece.

• George Dimitrakopoulos, experienced software engineer, systems administrator
• Paty Papagianni, our communications officer, with a long experience in humanitarian volunteering, too.

Ideas in Motion, Project Re:start, Kiron.