Youth Transform

When young people are empowered to advance their own livelihoods, they will help solve their communities’ development challenges. Youth Transform tackles the lack of jobs and educational opportunities faced by underprivileged youth though the elimination of educational, social, and technological infrastructure barriers that have until now prevented them from participating in the job market.

Youth Transform runs all-inclusive and self-sustaining centers that train, support and connect at risk youth to well-paying digital remote jobs. Our centers come with all the necessary infrastructure and amenities (trainings and working spaces, computers, internet, electricity, dormitory, food, clinic, recreational space) and managerial support to both staff and employer, therefore remove the obstacles that have been the major blockage from job market participation. This is a proven, successful and a highly replicable model where businesses can hire young talent based without occurring any operating and infrastructure cost (housing, internet,  electricity etc.).

There are an estimated 400 million youth globally who are unemployed, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).  Youth represents 25% of the total working age population but makes up 40% of the global unemployed population. In Haiti, our pilot country, 55% of the 11 million inhabitants are under the age 25 and 80% of them are unemployed. Youth unemployment can have lasting effects on lifetime employability through the depreciation of skills and can contribute to political and social instability as we have witnessed in Haiti. However, the technological and socio-political changes of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ are poised to transform employment and recruitment across industries and countries, thus create meaningful job opportunities globally. We can leverage these opportunities to tackle the critical youth unemployment challenge by increasing access to new remote work arrangements offering greater employability and overall economic development. We believe in the power of work and the potential of young people to reduce poverty. Unfortunately, many young people lack the skills and access to basic infrastructure (internet, electricity, computers, housing etc.) necessary to get and/or keep a remote digital job. Unless these barriers are removed, they will remain trapped in the cycle of poverty. 

Our solution focuses on removing all barriers to remote job opportunities. This is how it works:

• Removing skills barriers: We identify remote job opportunities by liaising with employers regarding their workforce needs. Curriculums are developed to encapsulate the skill sets that are needed. We then identify and screen the right disconnected youth candidates who are invited to enroll in our free training academies. Upon successful completion of our trainings, the graduates are hired directly into our Impact Delivery Centers which provide back office support to businesses.
• Removing infrastructure barriers: We run self-sufficient Impact Delivery campuses equipped  with  high speed internet connections, workstations, independent power generations, secured training and workspace facilities, dormitory,  in-house clinic, cafeteria, recreational spaces (basketball & volleyball courts, soccer fields), game room, library and prayer chapels etc. Self-sufficient hubs allow for uninterrupted services in the event of social and political unrest.
• Access to remote job opportunities: We market ourselves as a turn key solution (staff, space, equipment, infrastructure, secure facility with latest technology etc.) with no upfront investment and zero risk to any potential clients that are looking to significantly reduce their operational costs, improving their bottom lines, while boosting their corporate social responsibilities.

Youth Transform targets 18 to 30 year old disconnected and impoverished younth population tranche who has little to no job prospects.  Many of them live in slums and other economically distressed communities that are ravaged by illicit activities and violence. Most of them are eager for change. I have personally witnessed the transformational power when education is coupled with job access. The positive outcomes are astonishing. In a short three-year time-span, we managed to take 250 disconnected youth from extreme poverty to full blown middle-class professional status earning on average $8,000 annually in a country where the average per capita income is $860. This has resulted in direct injection of over 6.5 million dollars into the local economy. In addition to the jobs, 90% of the youth in our program are enrolled in college , 100% have bank accounts and health care coverage.  23 of them have started  small businesses in their communities while supporting their families. This has been only possible through the simple formula of trainings that meet the needs of employers, access to jobs and  infrastructure barriers removal through our all-inclusive and self-sustaining impact delivery hubs approach. Now, the youth can be part of the digital revolution. 

Our solution focuses directly on creating access to high paying digital and data related jobs for disconnected and marginalized youth populations living in impoverished and resources constrained communities. Through their earned income, these youth are investing resources and creating new businesses in the own communities. Thus far we have created 250 jobs ranging from $500 to $1200 monthly in Haiti. With the income earned from their jobs, 23 of them have already started businesses (motorcycle rental, taxi services, real estate rental, food delivery, clothing store, food processing etc.) in their communities. They are effectively breaking the cycle of poverty.

What makes our model innovative is its three-pronged approach to solving the underprivileged youth job access. It combines digital literacy skills with connecting youth to remote jobs and providing the needed technological and physical infrastructure necessary to get and keep the jobs.

Our all self-sustaining and all-inclusive approach allows for continuous services to clients regardless of the health, environment, social and political situation on the ground while achieving significant savings on operational and Human Ressources and workforce development related costs. Our closest competitors are the platforms that provide digital gigs such as Fiverr and the call centers that provide outsourcing services to the businesses. Unfortunately, neither the call centers nor the digital gig platforms address the challenges that prevent disconnected youth from taking advantage of digital work.  The digital gig platforms may provide micro tasks opportunities, but our targeted youth may  lack the skills and/or the equipment and/or connectivity to perform the tasks. And there is no workflow consistency. The call centers may have the connectivity, but they cannot offer uninterrupted services during social and political unrest or a health crisis like the Coronavirus that may limit movement of people. Youth transform is unique in the sense that it removes all the barriers that has been problematic for underprivileged youth to get and keep remote digital work while guaranteeing uninterrupted service to clients.

We rely on different types of technologies to make our business model work; however, technology is not the center piece of our model. It is rather the holistic approach taken to bring job opportunities to impoverished and disconnected youth and their communities.  Our all-inclusive and self-sustaining approach has allowed us to safely house our staff in order to provide uninterrupted services to clients in time of crisis such as the current Coronavirus and the many social and political unrest episodes that Haiti has seen the last two years. 

Here are some key metrics achieved in the last 3 years that can demonstrate the our business model potential to solve the high unemployment problem faced by young people in the developing world.

            .  Number of youth trained: 271

            .  Number of full time jobs: 250

            .  Number of internships: 18

            . % of staff in college: 90>#/p###

            .    Average monthly Salary: $ 669 - 7 times minimum wages in Haiti

            .    Salary Range: $500 to $1200 - 6 times to 12 times the minimum wage in Haiti -

            . Number of businesses created by staff: 23

 Other Benefits: 1- full health coverage after 3 months of employment at no cost to youth

                             2- Paid vacation time

                            3- Free continuing education

                            4- Two  company-sponsored outing each year

                          5- Free company-sponsored bank account after the first month of employment (only 15% of population is banked)

This model works even in the toughest and most unstable environments which makes it highly replicable in places where these type jobs are most needed.

Below is the to a short video that was filmed by one of our main clients in Canada a couple years ago. It will give you a glimpse of initiative.

https://vimeo.com/272292301

Password: 360Haiti 

Every young person deserves an opportunity to succeed regardless of their economic status, gender or nationality. If young people around the world, especially the disadvantaged and disconnected ones, are given the right training, tools and support to get and keep a job, they will then help solve their own, their families and their communities’ challenges. As evidenced by the impact highlighted above, young people can change their own economic and social realities in record time when opportunities that combine trainings and jobs access are presented to them. In addition to the economic and social benefits, the positive outcomes to youth employment are improved social skills, improved behavior, increased academic achievement, increased self-esteem, and increased self-efficacy. These are crucial skills that will set them on the path of success and achieving their true potential. 

Presently our solution directly created 306 jobs out of which 268 are directly related to disadvantaged youth.  The jobs created directly impact over 3060 people given that 10 people on average benefit directly from every job created in Haiti. In addition, we have 3200 of young people who currently receiving digital literacy trainings at our training academies. In the next 12 months we are anticipating creating at least 3000 new jobs which will translate in over 30000 people being impacted directly. We are currently working on a strategic five-year plan to train and connect at least 50,000 at risk youth to remote jobs through the expansion of our all self-sustaining and all-inclusive impact delivery hubs. This will directly impact  over half a million people and it should bring significant economic resources to the communities.

Our goal in the next 12 months is to open three new impact delivery hubs in three different neighborhoods of Haiti with a capacity of supporting at least 3000 remote jobs. That should result in impacting 30,000 lives directly. The current health pandemic is changing in a profound way how businesses approach work and has created new work opportunities that are not bound by geography. This is also an opportunity for us to quickly scale our services by offering businesses around the world an opportunity to achieve significant operational and human resources cost savings while boosting their corporate social responsibility by tapping into this new talent pool. This is a win-win scenario for both the businesses and the youth population. In the next five years, we plan to train, connect and support at least 50,000 disadvantaged and disconnected youth with meaningful job opportunities capable of taking them from financial precarity to financial freedom. 50,000 well-paying jobs will directly impact 500,000 lives while providing major economic relief to the communities where these jobs are created. We plan to achieve these goals by expanding our operations in Haiti and by replicating the model to at least two new countries through a BOT (Built, Operate and Transfer) model or through a franchisee model.

As evidenced by the positive impact achieved during the pilot phase, we are convinced that our business model can be an effective tool to deal with the high unemployment that impoverished youth living in distressed communities face. We’ve applied the lean business model approach to prove the concept. Now, that we are convinced that our model works, we need to work on the next phase of the project. As such, we have identified two distinct but interconnected challenges that must be overcome at this stage.

• Finding key talent to boost the management team is crucial to our scaling plan. Presently the initiative is being managed by four people in upper management supported by 15 middle managers who focus mainly on the day to day operations of the delivery impact hubs. Until now we rely solely on word of mouth to recruit both the youth as well as the businesses partnerships that provide the jobs. We will need to build a strong corporate sales and partnership team to scale our operations. But attracting the right talent and raising the capital to pay for them remains a daunting endeavor.
• Capital raising - reaching the next phase of our scaling plan requires considerable financial investment, technical training and management resources.  These resources, particularly the availability of financing funds, are scarce in Haiti. We hope to leverage the Solve community to network, share, learn and explore ways we can solve these barriers in the most efficient ways possible.

We hope to address these barriers through networking and creation of new partnerships to help us solve the challenges we highlighted earlier. We are particularly interested to network with other organizations that are providing services to disadvantaged groups, and/or that work in the digital literacy field and job creation. We are also interested to partner with organizations that share our vision of social justice and that we can provide technical support  and/or access to financial products that are in alignment with our business goals and strategies.   

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Currently our team consists of four people in upper management and 15 middle management team members who manage three Impact delivery hubs. 

Overall we have 250 full time staff (youth), 18 partime interns (youth) and 38 full time support staff spread accross 3 impact delivery hubs.

Youth Transform is led by Duquesne Fednard, a serial entrepreneur whose experience encompasses finance, management, operations and engineering in both start-ups and established enterprises in developed and developing countries. Having grown up in a distressed community in Haiti, Duquesne has experienced firsthand how education and access to jobs is instrumental in breaking the cycle of poverty. Present and past positions include CEO of Youth Transform, founder D&E Green Enterprises, co-founder of B2D S.A, Director of NYC Business Solutions at Wildcat Service Corporation, and Vice President at Perfection, one of the largest machine shops in Haiti. He is an Ashden award winner, an Ashoka fellow and past Digicel Haiti Entrepreneur of the Year.  

The Youth Transform initiative is managed by a team of four managers with skills and experience across finance, education, management, and marketing. Team members have extensive experience in leading initiatives in large businesses as well as launching entrepreneurial ventures both from the US and Haiti.

Youth Transform values excellence. The success of the initiative depends on having a capable workforce.  We are committed to hiring and developing leaders and staff to take the initiative to the next level.

We currently parner with Centre de Technologie Moderne d'Haiti for curriculum development and skill trainings

Digicel, Natcom and Hainet for communication and internet connectivity

360 Insights and Intercap that connect us to over 100 companies that we provide back support services for.

We run self-sustaining and all-inclusive impact delivery hubs staffed by young talent trained specifically to support the needs of employers. We guarantee uninterrupted services to clients regardless of situation on the ground.

Our value proposition is quite simple. We provide a turn key solution ( staff, space, equipment, infrastructure, secure facility with latest tech etc.) with no upfront investment and no risk to clients that are looking to significantly reduce their operational costs, improve their bottom lines while boosting their corporate social responsibilities. We start by identifying the client’s workforce needs. We then identify and train the right candidates to specifically support the client’s needs.  We do not require any commitment except for an opportunity to showcase our youth’s talent on a trial basis. We then move to signing a long term or a month to month contract if the client is satisfied with the services. We specialize in back office support. We are open 24/7 and process work in English, Spanish, French and Creole and Portuguese.  

Youth Transform is a true Social Business, financial self-sustainability in inherent to this project. Not only must a Social Business be operated according to a vision incorporating social or environmental objectives, it must also generate revenues to cover its costs. Our revenue model is straight forward. We charge our clients a fee for the services we provide. Our clients are sizable businesses located in the developed countries that often have back office tasks that are difficult to staff for or too expensive for their current operations. Through cost arbitrage we are able to provide them significant savings by outsourcing these tasks to our impact delivery hubs while providing our disadvantaged youth a path out of poverty. 

We believe that Solve is the right platform for the type of impact we seek to achieve. Being part of network that brings thoughts leaders from various background and experience where we can share, learn, and solve social issues together is privilege. We believe Solve is perfect platform for any social problem solvers who seek to accelerate their solutions. I would be honored to join such a prestigious organization. 

Our hope is that we can find partners to help our address the challenges we highlighted earlier. We are particularly interested to network with other organizations that are providing services to disadvantaged groups, and/or that work in the digital literacy field and job creation. We are also interested to partner with an organization that shares our vision of social justice and that we can support through our impact delivery hubs. 

We hope to formulate new partnerships with other organizations that focus on education and digital literacy, social justice and youth issues, and impact finance. We would like to partner with organizations that are innovating in the educational and job creation space. We are also interested in partnering with organizations/mentors who can help us with refining our processes and planning.  We wish to partner with  Solve and/or other similar entities that can connect us to funding and human resources that can assist us with our plan. Lastly, we would like to work with any organizations that share our values and can connect us to new opportunities for our youth population .

Our solutions focuses on gender parity. 

62% of our staff are women and 65% of our leadership positions are filled by women. 

Our soultion is in perfect alignment of the GM Prize. We focus on creating good job and entrepreneurship opportunities for disadvantaged groups.

Our soultion is in perfect alignment of the Gulbenkian Award. One of the corner stone of our solution is digital literacy that provided to disconnected young aldult between the (18-30) and connecting them with well paid jobs.

We believe our soultion is good fit for the Planet Capital Prize for type of model that is applied to solving the youth unemployment problem.