Talent Beyond Boundaries

Millions of people migrate for work every year, but refugees and other forcibly displaced people are largely locked out of these opportunities because they are invisible to global labour markets and skilled visa systems. They are excluded from local markets too and denied legal status. Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) is the first organization worldwide dedicated to capturing skills data to demonstrate the potential within refugee populations and enable displaced talent to equitably compete for global jobs and skilled visas. Our Talent Catalog database enabled a skills-based solution to displacement for refugees who receive jobs and move to communities in need of talent - so far in Australia, Canada and the UK. We use data on displaced talent to connect employers and offer actionable solutions to governments to expand labour mobility options. At scale, tens of thousands of refugees could move to safety each year, regaining regular status and secure futures.

People living as refugees are, despite their skills and talents, often locked out of good jobs and their pre-conflict careers. Nearly 13 million refugees are working age, but most cannot work legally. They are pushed into the informal economy and reliance on aid, and their hard-won skills atrophy. Many live with irregular status, curtailed rights and bleak prospects for their children’s futures. With few routes to safety and opportunity, many embark on dangerous journeys, often with tragic consequences. 

Exclusionary policies have contributed to harmful narratives about refugees as unskilled “burdens” on societies – stereotypes which have also stifled alternative mobility options for them. Refugees have the skills to fill international skills gaps, but the systems that govern recruitment and skilled migration put them at a disadvantage or block them out entirely because they weren’t designed for people in displacement. Comprehensive refugee skills data is not gathered by UNHCR, and in its absence, harmful and inaccurate narratives persist unchallenged.  

The Talent Catalog provides categorical proof of immense talent. TBB has demonstrated how capturing skills data can unlock this talent pool for employers and make visible the systemic barriers within skilled visa systems that are uniquely impossible for refugees to satisfy.

Our solution changes the paradigm: Refugees aren’t a problem - they’re a solution for companies and communities in need of talent.

We built a searchable skills database called the Talent Catalog, in English and Arabic (expandable to other languages) and interoperable with Salesforce, that allows refugees to register their skills and talents. The application of streamlined, scalable software to map skills within displaced populations for the first time is transformational.

We harness data to connect global employers with refugees who meet their skills gaps. Employers sponsor refugees to move as workers. By facilitating job matches and life-changing relocations, we surface the litany of financial, policy, information and operational barriers that prevent refugees from accessing labour mobility at scale. We deliver real-time feedback to government partners to ensure learning from one refugee’s experience is turned into a systemic change, paving the way for countless others who will follow.

When these barriers are broken down, the impact is profound: Refugees who have moved through our model have seen incomes increase as much as 3,900%, and gained routes to citizenship. Many feel they were given “a chance to be human again” by having their abilities valued for the first time since their displacement.

TBB works with refugees and other displaced people living in Jordan and Lebanon. Over 18,800 refugees have registered on the Talent Catalog database so far. TBB candidates are marginalized from work and face discrimination and other abuses due to nationality, race, religion and status.

To understand their needs and engage their voices, TBB regularly conducts surveys of candidates still living displaced and those who have relocated.

The impact on those who move is transformative:

• 127 people have secured a solution to displacement through TBB's pilot. So far, 39 people - 15 men, 11 women, 5 boys, and 8 girls - have moved from displacement to a country with legal work and a clear route to citizenship. Another 88 are awaiting visas. 
• 100% of those who moved reported increased quality of life, including greater job satisfaction, increased safety, and greater access to healthcare and education.
• 60% of relocated candidates are sending remittances to family and friends in difficult circumstances abroad.

Candidates who have not yet moved are also impacted. Of 259 survey respondents:

• 48% reported they are less likely to consider an irregular migration journey because of their engagement with TBB.
• 82% reported increased motivation to maintain their skills and pursue professional self-development.

TBB’s solution directly meets the challenge goals: Data makes visible a previously hidden talent pool, and refugees compete for good jobs worldwide and relocate with their families to homes where they have secure livelihoods, social security, and a pathway to citizenship. Refugees have been invisible to global employers and to skilled visa systems not designed for refugee applicants. TBB developed practical software to apply to a new problem, and achieved a paradigm shift: Refugees’ own skills can support them and their families out of displacement and their data can help design better and more equitable recruitment and mobility systems.

Existing durable solutions for refugees are few and far between, and are often viewed as sharing of a mutual “burden.” Our core innovation lies in using data to harness the existing interests and unique capabilities of the private sector, refugees, and governments to create a “triple win.” By taking advantage of skilled visa systems, we create opportunities over and above existing humanitarian and resettlement spots.

Our work is driven by data, collected and applied to a new purpose, and underpinned by a searchable, scalable database of refugees’ employable skills. It varies considerably from existing databases on refugee demographics by providing actionable information for global employers to assess fit for open roles. We engage businesses not as donors but as employers first, speaking the language of talent and demand. We help governments learn firsthand how their immigration policies play out in refugees’ lives, and to develop innovative policy, practical and financial solutions to break down the barriers we find.

Michael Clemens, economist from the Center for Global Development, said: "If you look superficially, it’s a nice project helping out people in conditions of displacement, helping them get jobs and improve their lives. 

It’s much more fundamental than that. It’s creating a new kind of migration. It’s not traditional resettlement [...] It’s directly facilitating job placement, finding this legal space within displacement, treating them as a resource rather than a burden. It’s a kind of migration the world has never seen, and Talent Beyond Boundaries is inventing that."

TBB’s solution is a new application of an existing technology: A database of refugee skills applied, for the first time, to demonstrate the breadth and depth of refugee skills to enable a new solution to displacement and recognize refugees as able contributors to companies and communities in need of talent.

The TBB database is underpinned by two main technologies, a traditional database called the Talent Catalog and an interoperable Salesforce database. Both are cloud-based solutions. The Talent Catalog is a searchable, scalable database of refugees’ employable skills - work experience, education, language skills - designed to match talent supply with specific needs of employers, and Salesforce tracks the interactions of refugee candidates with employers and visa systems. The Salesforce database enables TBB to track impact, monitor and improve process efficiency, provide feedback on candidate performance, and identify barriers across recruitment and visa systems through the experience of individuals.

Our database has driven TBB's model since conception. We launched in 2016 by developing the Talent Catalog database, managed by a former Syrian refugee, and our co-founder and pro bono Chief Technology Officer has since overseen its growth and consistent development. In the last year, TBB upgraded the Talent Catalog software to facilitate automation. For example, the team can now utilize saved searches so that new registrants to the growing database who meet in-demand jobs are automatically flagged. The greater automation potential enables TBB to more seamlessly adapt as the database grows from the current 18,800 registrants to 50,000 and beyond.

Skills databases are widely used in local job markets (i.e. Magnet, Canada’s Job Bank, Refugee Talent) and by global recruitment companies (i.e. VanHack, Global Skills Hub, Korn Ferry) to facilitate matches between hiring employers and job seekers. 

TBB is the only organization worldwide that operates a database dedicated to matching hiring employers with refugee job seekers who are still living displaced, as a new solution to displacement. See a product demo, designed for refugee candidates in the Middle East and available in Arabic only: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZNN4y7nT9M 

We have developed a dashboard of key metrics to track operational progress including Talent Catalog entries, employer engagement, job matching effectiveness, and sex and age disaggregated data on families moved. We have survey instruments to measure longitudinal impacts on refugees and employers. Through these methods, we have collected evidence that this technology works:

• 18,880 refugees have signed up to the Talent Catalog
• 117 employers have received CVs from candidates registered on the Talent Catalog, whose skills align with open roles.
• Just over 50% of 38 employer representatives in a recent survey felt that candidates provided by TBB “exceeded their expectations” and another 31% felt the candidates “met their expectations” in terms of skills and qualifications.
• One in five employers who reach the stage of reviewing candidate CVs ultimately issues a job offer. 
• 127 people have secured a solution to displacement and have either traveled or are waiting for visas.

When forcibly displaced people are empowered to showcase their skills, private sector employers will welcome access to this previously hidden talent pool.

When administrative barriers that prevent forcibly displaced people from accessing skilled migration are removed, private sector employers will recruit from this displaced talent pool.

When displaced people are able to access finance on reasonable terms, they will contribute to the cost of their migration, expanding those able to access labour mobility and the pool of private sector employers willing to hire skilled displaced people.

When labour mobility is accessible, it enables displaced people to relocate to countries and communities where their skills are needed, and where they can provide for themselves, maintain their skills and rebuild their lives.

When others working with displaced populations (such as NGOs, settlements organizations, national governments and international agencies) see evidence that labour mobility provides a scalable and durable solution to displacement, they will replicate and expand these efforts. 

When forcibly displaced people are able to use their skills and talents to relocate to countries where they can work, fewer displaced people will be dependent on humanitarian assistance, host country burdens will be reduced, and destination countries will benefit. As displaced people begin to see labour mobility as a way out of displacement, they will focus even more on overcoming the barriers to maintaining and developing their skills and educating their children.

When international recruitment of refugees has been proven to be viable at scale, companies can recruit the talents they need from this population and those engaged in job matching will include skilled people in displaced populations in their supply chains.  

When skilled people from displaced populations successfully move to fill skill gaps they help to promote the image of displaced people as those who add value to communities and economies. Staff at the firms that have recruited from the Talent Catalog number more than 33,900 people globally, representing a new community of support engaged with displaced talent.

See TBB’s global evaluation of its pilot work (June 2020). 

There are 18,800 registrants on the Talent Catalog who are now visible to global employers and visa systems. The people directly and meaningfully affected to date include 127 people who have secured a solution to displacement and have either travelled or are waiting for visas, and 750 candidates who have benefited from TBB services and support towards interviewing with employers abroad. As noted above, even before securing employment this latter group reports: They are less likely to consider an irregular migration journey because of their engagement with TBB; increased motivation to maintain their skills and pursue professional self-development; and restored hope, confidence and self worth.

In two years, TBB will increase registrations on the Talent Catalog to 100,000 refugees within the Middle East (including Turkey) and with additional funding assist 1,000 refugees to move from the Middle East through refugee-accessible labour pathways established in Australia and Canada and emerging in the UK and New Zealand. 

In five years, with substantial scale funding secured, TBB will significantly increase registrations on the Talent Catalog (and similar interoperable databases) beyond the Middle East in other refugee-hosting contexts to 250,000 registrants. TBB will facilitate funding for and train five organizations to adopt the source or destination country model as part of their existing programs with refugees or employers respectively (at least two organizations in Colombia and Kenya). Directly and through partnerships, TBB will assist a total of 7,500 refugees to move via labour mobility by 2025.

We are unlocking labour mobility for refugees, and enlisting an ecosystem of actors to deliver this solution at scale. The 26 countries identified by UNHCR as resettlement partners alone issue over 2 million work visas annually. When refugees can equitably access these visas and secure a fraction of them, we will have created solutions for hundreds of thousands of displaced people every year. Research shows that international labour mobility is among the most powerful antipoverty solutions and quality of life interventions available in developing countries. TBB’s work will make those benefits equitably available to refugees.

Enablers of scale for our model include: Profound, observable, direct impact on refugees; operational partnerships with agenda-setting actors including UNHCR, and the governments of Australia and Canada; and strong potential for financial sustainability by tapping into market forces.

In the next year, we will grow our programs in existing countries to generate economies of scale, refine our model, and further embed policy reforms. In the next five years, we’ll then drive replication in diverse contexts to reach global scale. We’ll support our government partners to champion their policy innovations to other nation-states while we fund and train other organizations in refugee-hosting and refugee-receiving countries to “graft” essential components of our job-matching and relocation model, including the Talent Catalog database, onto their existing work.

We field daily requests for our expansion from refugees, organizations, UNHCR offices, and employers around the world. This challenge allows us to rise to the call.

Market: In the next year, the COVID pandemic will impact TBB’s work. Some businesses may face ongoing slowdowns or pressure to retrain and hire unemployed workers domestically, which may reduce demand for international workers. The tech sector notably may see a permanent shift to more remote work, and potentially reduced international recruitment. However, while the unprecedented global crisis has reduced employer demand for workers in a number of sectors, it has also increased demand in several others (i.e. healthcare, manufacturing), and as economies move into recovery that demand will grow.

Technical: TBB has proven through its pilot phase that some displaced people in refugee circumstances can access existing labour mobility pathways where they receive support through TBB’s program. The pilot has also uncovered a number of mobility barriers that, if left unaddressed, will impact wider uptake of this solution over the next one to five years. During the pilot phase TBB and its partners were able to make some strides in overcoming these barriers, and in all cases, TBB identified viable solutions that, if applied, would address them. Our close partnerships through formal pilots with governments in Australia and Canada, and expanding engagement with government representatives in the UK, are expected to continue driving policy innovation to overcome key mobility barriers.

TBB developed its risk monitoring and mitigation capacity in partnership with experts from the US State Department and Global Innovation Fund. We maintain an active incident and risk register of programmatic, beneficiary, political/contextual, and organizational risks, their potential impact on the program, and their relative priority. This register is reviewed quarterly by senior leadership and the Board of Directors. In light of the COVID pandemic, TBB has developed a response plan which includes weekly context and risk monitoring by senior leadership to respond to elevated uncertainty.

Market: The COVID pandemic has drastically diminished international mobility and recruitment in the short term. We anticipate this reality will persist throughout 2020. However, our employer partners in food production, manufacturing, healthcare, and tech are seeing continued or elevated demand for workers. TBB candidates in essential sectors continue to receive job offers and visa approvals even as other kinds of movement are severely reduced. In the next year, TBB will continue focusing recruitment in these essential sectors. 

Technical: Mobility barriers persist, but TBB has longstanding partnerships with governments in destination countries where we work to mitigate and overcome them. For example, in Australia, the government is rolling out a two-year Skilled Refugee Pilot to enable visas for 100 skilled refugees in addition to their families. This will be done with a Labour Agreement between Australia and TBB which gives businesses the ability to sponsor candidates identified by TBB for a number of skilled visas under more flexible arrangements that address key barriers.

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TBB is a lean team of approximately two staff per country where we operate. We have 10 full-time and two part-time staff based in Australia, Canada, Jordan, Lebanon, the UK, and the US. We draw on partnerships in each country to support our core operations and rely on a small group of long-serving pro bono advisors with expertise primarily in technology, immigration legal services and corporate relations. 

Find out more about our global team here: https://www.talentbeyondbounda...

TBB is recognized by the UNHCR and the governments of Australia and Canada as the only organization with the experience and capacity to scale a labour mobility solution for refugees.

TBB was incubated at the Harvard Advanced Leadership Institute in 2014 as American attorneys Mary Louise and Bruce Cohen looked to leverage decades of experience in government, policy and nonprofit leadership into a bold new solution to the refugee crisis. They joined forces with Australian entrepreneur John Cameron, parlaying his success building innovative tech products and companies into a win-win solution for refugees and the global economy.

TBB is now led by two dynamic Co-CEOs and a team of Country Directors. Our diverse staff is on the ground across Jordan, Lebanon, Australia, Canada, the US and the UK. Team members have lived refugee experience as well as backgrounds in immigration law, international advocacy, consulting, communications, technology, policy, and program design and delivery, and are supported by a high caliber group of pro bono advisers and board members including the Honourable John McCallum, former Minister of Immigration, Refugees, Citizenship Canada.

Our model is backed by over 65 employers, from SMEs to global corporate leaders like Accenture. We have a cooperation agreement with the UNHCR and we are partnering closely with the Australian and Canadian governments and refugee-led organisations like Refugee Talent. Refugees who have been the vanguards of this model are now our ambassadors and advisors. We collaborate with researchers, such as the Migration Policy Institute, to share evidence and learning.

TBB has several primary partnerships: 

1. The governments of Australia and Canada are partners in pilot projects to facilitate the mobility of skilled refugees in the Talent Catalog to jobs across these countries using skilled visa pathways. In Canada, five participating provincial and territorial governments are partners in delivering the pilot. 

2. The UNHCR has in many ways been an enabler, collaborator and champion since the inception of the TBB labour mobility model and database. Today, TBB partners through an ongoing cooperation agreement with UNHCR headquarters in Geneva which underlies partnerships in each country where TBB operates. This partnership covers candidate outreach, communications, policy advocacy, and strategy.

3. Refugee Talent in Australia operates a national job-matching platform designed to connect refugees already in Australia with employers, and its database is bridged with the Talent Catalog so that every time an English-speaking candidate who is still living displaced registers, the CV populates in the Refugee Talent database and is available to employers. This partnership represents one model for scaling our employer outreach in destination countries.   

4. RefugePoint is a refugee-serving organization with whom TBB has partnered to replicate and adapt labour mobility operations for its clients living in Kenya. So far, 20 people have secured a labour mobility solution and are in an immigration process. Replication at source by refugee-serving organizations who adopt or adapt a database of refugee skills is vital to growth in new regions worldwide.

Our social value proposition is providing refugees access to good jobs and a durable solution - reducing dependence on aid, poverty, and work exploitation - while filling skills shortages globally. 

Our candidates, who are refugees and other displaced people, access global work opportunities, recruitment services, relocation assistance, and secure futures for themselves and their families. When asked about their motivation for registering on the Talent Catalog more than three quarters of 259 candidates responding to a survey said because they do not have access to a durable solution in their host country (78%). The next highest response was creating a better life for their family members (69%); followed by finding employment that matches their skills (62%); and being able to work legally (59%). 

Our employer partners first and foremost access qualified talent. In a recent survey, 38 representatives from 27 businesses reported their motivations for hiring candidates through TBB’s program: The most common motivations were to fill skills shortages that cannot be filled locally (63%); to fulfill CSR and purpose goals (47%); to create a talent pipeline to meet future skills needs (44%); and to meet diversity and inclusion goals (34%). These answers indicate a clear business case driving employer uptake, an important finding that indicates scaleable demand. 

In addition to providing a service to connect displaced talent with employers facing skills gaps, TBB engages in data-driven advocacy with governments, primarily in Australia, Canada, and the UK, to continue expanding access to skilled visa pathways by refugees and their employers.

At scale, the costs of TBB’s model are shared among the beneficiaries of the labour mobility outcome, including:

• Candidates - who contribute to the costs of migration, where necessary by taking out loans arranged with TBB’s assistance which can be repaid once they are working at their destination. Candidates are incentivised to contribute in order to secure a durable solution to their displacement. 

• Employers - who contribute to the costs of recruitment, visas and relocation. Employers are incentivised by the promise of securing skilled workers who they cannot find locally as well as the social impact benefits of hiring displaced talent. 

• Receiving communities - who contribute to settling candidates and their families, both through sustained voluntary networks and/or government funded programs already operating in destination countries. Receiving communities are incentivised to contribute in order to attract skills, boost demographics, and build inclusive and diverse communities.

TBB has already made strides establishing this sustainable funding model, including testing the extent of employer capacity and willingness to pay, and early implementation of candidate loan arrangements. Over the next five years TBB plans to transition to a model of fully self-funded programs, supplemented by philanthropy to cover core costs.

In the meantime, TBB will continue to draw on philanthropic and government funds to establish the social, financial and technological infrastructure required to achieve this sustainable funding model.

TBB is positioning our team and organization to institutionalize our gains and expand this solution. We know that partnerships are the key to scale - partnerships worldwide have amplified every aspect of our work - and our growth strategy centres on deepening our current partnerships and striking new ones with organizations that can replicate and adapt our model.

Our motivations to become an MIT Solver are to widen our network of strategic partnerships and to secure the funding and other in-kind support to make these partnerships meaningful. Solve can support us in these key areas:

Market barriers: Mentor and advise business development and strategic planning through uncertainty, as the COVID pandemic shifts the labour market. 

Technical barriers: Build connections to research institutions as well as technical experts in automation and AI to advance our job matching success, data-driven policy advocacy and integration with partners’ database systems.

Funding: Build connections to grantors to advance the growth phase of our fundraising strategy.

A significant value at this stage of growth is business development mentorship as we explore and test a social enterprise model and commercial partnerships with recruitment services towards expansion. 

Marketing partnerships to amplify refugee talent narratives are also mission-critical.

We aim to grow partnerships with research institutions to fully leverage our data and drive forward knowledge and policy insights that would permanently expand labour mobility options. In addition to mobility barriers surfaced in our work, TBB uncovered new insights on development benefits of labour mobility, its potential to disincentivize irregular migration, and a “skills lift” effect when refugees know their skills can be a passport out of displacement. These impacts warrant scholarly attention. 

Finally, we are constant innovators in tech as we develop our database to support growth, replication and expansion, and partnering with technical experts in automation and AI is another high priority to drive impact and efficiency.

TBB has strategic alignment with two MIT Solve members - the BMW Foundation and Cisco - with whom we hope to build connections. BMW Foundation funds human rights- and innovation-based programs; and Cisco has supported a number of initiatives in refugee communities such as network building in crisis zones. Both members could help us deepen our impact through grant funding. Cisco could consider becoming a hiring partner and source talent from the Talent Catalog. 

Other Solve members we are keen to engage as potential hiring partners, with in-demand roles in countries where TBB works, include: Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Uber, and HP.

TBB is interested in exploring a research partnership with Professor Admir Masic of the ReACT Refugee Action Hub, to expand the knowledge base about the practical impact and future potential of skills-based mobility as a complementary pathway for refugees and other forcibly displaced people. TBB could also explore an upskilling partnership with ReACT, which has in common with TBB our partners Paper Airplanes and UNRWA, to refer our candidates to the ReACT Certificate and MicroMasters programs. MIT's Centre for International Studies is another potential research partner and hub of interrelated expertise. 

As noted above, business development mentorship and expertise is a significant value at this stage of TBB’s growth. A partnership with experts at the Center for MIT Entrepreneurship could advance our growth as a sustainable social enterprise.

(TBB is an official partner of the MIT Lebanon Challenge and we'll continue seeking these impactful country-specific opportunities to collaborate.)

TBB pioneered a skills-based solution to displacement where refugees use their skills and talents to secure their own futures, achieving full inclusion in the economic, financial and political fabric of their new homes. TBB's model has had a transformative impact on refugees and their families who have relocated from displacement to countries where they have good jobs and a pathway to citizenship. It has generated a range of complementary positive benefits for employers, destination country economies and refugees still living displaced. 

The model centres on human potential and dignity: 

“I can have a secure life rather than living in daily fear of how I was going to stay alive and support my family. From now, I can start building my future and achieve my ambitions and goals.” - Mohammed, software developer in Canada and former refugee

“Your calling me into this interview today made me feel like I’m a normal human being.” - Nurse living as a refugee in Kenya

TBB will use the Andan Prize funding and recognition towards data-driven policy innovation in destination countries to embed and expand inclusive skilled visa programs, building on current government partnerships in Australia and Canada, and emerging ones in the UK and New Zealand. As the TBB model drives more equitable access to skilled visa systems for refugees, it will catalyze permanent new routes to safety and powerful knowledge of them within refugee communities worldwide. Awareness of skills-based mobility options disincentivizes irregular migration, drives skills acquisition, and restores hope, confidence and self-worth.