B.O.T - Social Impact platform

There are 64% of underemployed youth in Lebanon, of which more than 57% are women. The unemployment rate in Jordan has reached 25% in Q1-2023 and an unprecedented 48.1% among youth. Moreover, women’s labor force participation stood at 14%, one of the lowest in the world.  

Deepened by the financial crisis, digital divide, and unequal access to ICT services, the employability prospects for the youth worsened, especially for those in remote areas, with little access to training, education, and jobs. 

On the other hand, the growing demand for digital services, combined with a wide-scale shift toward normalizing remote and gig work in the digital economy has opened opportunities to many marginalized communities, that have traditionally lacked access to conventional forms of employment.

Yet, there are many challenges to be addressed, among them are mixed levels of digital literacy among marginalized communities, combined with unstructured training and limited access to equipment and the internet.

Due to the global and remote nature of digital work, workers often lack the protections that come with traditional employment, such as minimum wage laws, benefits, and workplace safety regulations. This lack of protection makes digital workers more vulnerable to exploitation, low wages, and poor working conditions.

Additionally, digital workers are often tasked with performing unethical tasks, such as content moderation, which can expose them to disturbing and harmful content without proper psychological support. In some cases, workers are also asked to engage in unethical practices such as fake reviews or spreading misleading information. 

Research has also indicated the precarious nature of digital work, where workers lack bargaining power which results in a race to the bottom with wages; as well as being asked to perform unethical tasks while often working in not safe working conditions. 

It appears that current approaches to digital livelihoods are not operating at scale. This stagnation is due in part to supply and demand barriers, including obstacles such as inadequate identification systems for workers, and universal recognition of qualifications and skills, but also inconsistent and ineffective links between the private sector and displaced people. Thus far, the response to provide access to jobs for the displaced has been piecemeal, inconsistent, and siloed and has not resulted in wide-scale employment. 

Crucial for digital livelihoods to be operationalized is a consistent investment in training so that people acquire the relevant skills to successfully work in the digital sector, both globally and locally.

Sustained support is also required to fulfill the promise of sustainable digital jobs. It is important to ensure that these opportunities are accessible to everyone and that workers are not exploited or left behind. It could also involve initiatives that promote digital literacy and training to ensure that workers have the skills needed to succeed in the digital economy.

Moreover,  efforts to address the digital divide, and ensure that everyone has access to the necessary tools and infrastructure to participate in the digital economy are crucial for creating more equitable opportunities.

B.O.T's mission is to minimize the digital divide, provide equal training and employment opportunities to youth from remote and marginalized communities, and offer digital jobs and path to launch their careers in the tech world.

Our social objectives are :

- Provide opportunities to acquire new sets of workforce readiness skills (main focus on digital, data processing skills), as a first step of their journey with B.O.T.

- Provide with part or full-time employment opportunities and the ability to prove themselves in a range of skills (e.g. data collection, data annotation) within various industry fields through projects with B.O.T’s customers.

- Provide a base of knowledge and experience to enable youth to launch a career in tech.

- Increase awareness of Social Impact/Procurement and Responsibilities within local and international organizations.

B.O.T is the first social impact sourcing platform in MENA that provides high-quality data services executed by a managed workforce of upskilled youth from vulnerable communities. 

Following the Agency model, B.O.T serves as a bridge between the end customer and the workforce, adding value by offering Project Management, Tech support, quality assurance, workforce management, and training. 

Due to its flexible and extensive workforce, B.O.T is able to deliver large projects under strict deadlines, with minimal costs and superior quality. 

To ensure consistent quality services, B.O.T provides training, on-job training, equipment, and internet access necessary to deliver a project, as well as employs a full-time team of skilled professionals  - project managers, product managers, data scientists, marketing and business development, and human recourses manager, as well as collaborate with DOT Lebanon to continue the expansion of its workforce, developing new training curriculums and offer various digital skills training.

B.O.T targets unemployed and underemployed women and youth from refugees and host communities affected by the rising unemployment rates and lack of access to digital training and resources.

Our mission is to create and multiply social impact by providing digital training and employment opportunities to underprivileged communities in Lebanon and Jordan. 

B.O.T.'s primary service offering is a data collection service for NGOs and corporations. B.O.T has been steadily growing its local market share in data collection every year, generating over $600K in sales revenues in 2022. 

In 2021 in partnership with UNICEF, Alfanar and DOT Lebanon, B.O.T Lebanon successfully piloted a new service  - Data annotation for AI models,  delivering 25 projects to 9 international clients, generating $180K in revenues during the pilot phase only.

This project provides an opportunity to engage more women and youth in the digital economy and is not limited by the local customer base. In 2022 we were awarded a grant from the EBRD Star Venture program to scale and launch Data training for AI services internationally.

B.O.T beneficiaries are Lebanese and Jordanian youth who are under/unemployed, coming from rural and marginalized, who have been affected by the rising unemployment rates and lack of access to digital training and resources. 

B.O.T proactively targets women (60% of the beneficiaries) and people with disabilities  (6%) to include them in the workforce. 

In 2023 B.O.T has access to 2,500 youth across Lebanon and Jordan, many of the youths come from underprivileged, low-income, and remote communities. The youth learns about B.O.T’s training and job opportunities through various outreach activities and gets vetted and registered on the B.O.T platform.

Since its inception in 2019, B.O.T provided upskilling and jobs to over 1,076 beneficiaries (60% women), earning a total of $856K in salaries, and training opportunities to over 14,000 individuals in partnership with DOT Lebanon and Jordan. 

Expanding the AI service internationally gives B.O.T the potential to increase the social impact and provide training and employment opportunities to a larger number of people.  We expect to sustain existing jobs and offer job opportunities to 150-200 new individuals and training opportunities to 300+ individuals. 

By sustaining existing jobs and creating new job opportunities we will contribute to reducing unemployment and improving economic development in the affected communities. Additionally, providing training opportunities to more people will help equip individuals with the skills needed to succeed in the digital economy and increase their employability.

The founding team has been working together before the inception of B.O.T  at its current partner NGO, DOT Lebanon, and has extensive experience working together which lays a strong foundation for effective teamwork and collaboration.

Marianne Bitar, is a Founder and CEO, she has extensive experience in NGO Management and relief and development project implementation and is an expert in issues surrounding refugee communities in Lebanon. Before forming B.O.T, Marianne was a country director at DOT Lebanon, managed operations at World Vision International, and established World Vision Lebanon’s refugee program, building an impressive network of Lebanese and International civil society organizations that served her duties in coordination, partnership and fundraising. 

A feminist by all means Marianne has made it her personal mission to create activities that bridge together the gender divide in the digital world. A true believer in the butterfly effect, Marianne took the TEDx stage in 2016 to talk about this issue and how she was able to connect the dots in her life and her network - Ted Talk by Marianne Bitar Karam

Operations and Project Management unit, led by Charbel Saliba, includes 3 project managers and data scientist. 

The Operations and Project Management unit is led by Charbel Saliba.  Charbel has more than 10 years of experience in multiple countries and in several industries, ranging from distribution to sales, to operations, he has gathered multiple expertise that can be used in multiple departments within a company. Charbel is result oriented and is a multiplier, he is leading a team of account executives who are always delivering high standards projects. 

The business development and marketing unit is led by Charbel Karam, Charbel graduated with a Bachelor’s & Master’s degree in Marketing, and he went on to apply his skills working for major holding corporations in Lebanon, launching 360-degree campaigns, and managing events and PR activations before joining DOT Lebanon in 2017 to launch its communications department and lead the brand creation, development and launching of B.O.T. Having the coordination skills of an eight-foot octopus, Charbel is our go-to-guy when it comes to supporting project management.

The Product Development unit led by Katya Egorova, is responsible for strategy, research, new business ideas piloting, and achieving operational excellence. Fulbright and DAAD scholar, Katya has a Ph.D. in Economics and a Master’s degree in International Business. Before joining B.O.T she led a data acquisition practice in CIS countries at Bloomberg, London, and worked as a head of operations at a health-tech startup, Slighter. Katya is also in charge of grant applications and relationships management, as well as the company's strategy.

The Talent Management Unit, which is in charge of outreach, training, upscaling skills of the workforce, and profiling, is led by Rita Hawa, who is an expert in the social enterprise ecosystem and the Talent Management field. Rita graduated from USEK holding a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing. Having a passion for HR and a people-centric orientation, Rita is a huge contributor to the placement and development of the workforce.

B.O.T's 2023-2024 objective is to continue generating impact and spreading awareness about B.O.T across Lebanon, Jordan, and other countries in the Middle East.

In the coming two years we aim to create at least 240 jobs including 40 full-time positions and work opportunities for 200 part-time workers, and 300+ training opportunities.

In order to continue growing and scaling we have to diversify our revenue sources to include international customers. Therefore the focus for the upcoming years is to access new clients in new markets and build an internationally recognizable brand and  place Lebanon on the map for business process outsourcing, 

The first step towards this goal is to scale and launch internationally our new line of service  - Data Annotations for AI models, the revenues from which will be sufficient to sustain a solid team of annotators, team leaders, project managers, and developers and continue spreading the knowledge and impact in the community.

We recognize that to build a competitive edge in the crowded AI space we have to focus our human and financial resources on the following three areas: 

- Technological capacity building, 

- Workforce capacity building and 

- Sales & marketing. 

1 ) Technological capacity building - tech due diligence, acquisition, development, and integration of the proprietary data annotation platform with B.O.T proprietary in-house built Talent management platform and its further development. Assessment and application for data-specific quality and security certifications: ISO 27001, GDPR, and building data security protocol for data collection and data annotation. Acquisition of assets for the workforce.

2) Workforce capacity building - the quality-focused, dedicated and available workforce at scale is a primary need to succeed in the data annotation space. We face challenges in being able to efficiently retain, scale, and plan our workforce availability, mainly due to the freelance nature of the work and low visibility of the future projects pipeline. To address this we aim to double the number of engaged workforce and teams, as well as to offer fixed-term contracts to some of the workforce who will form core teams (it is estimated that a team of 8-10 workforce is managed by one team leader).

3) Sales & marketing activities - our impact is directly related to the revenues we cash through the projects. Therefore, to ensure a solid project pipeline from international customers, we need to invest in our brand recognition abroad, penetrate new markets, and capitalize on organic growth from the existing customer base.

To achieve the set goals, and ensure sustainable projects pipeline and jobs, we apply to receive financial support as well as access to the MIT Solve network of professionals to address the three above areas. Our business is built on trust and partnerships and we would like to be able to scale internationally using the same model, as well as share our knowledge and business expertise with other communities across the globe to create a global impact. 

We recognize that to build a sustainable impactful solution, we have to take a comprehensive holistic approach to tackle the problem. 

We operate as a part of the community and leverage our partners' network to deliver an innovative and flexible offering that is aimed to create a positive impact on the personal and professional lives of youth from marginalized communities. 

Our business model is profitable and proven to deliver social impact. With support and knowledge transfer the business model can be scaled to different countries/ regions. 

Our approach is based on three pillars: workforce, technology, and sales.

1-Workforce is the core of our solution - digitally trained, equipped, quality-focused, motivated workforce at scale is a primary need to succeed in the data processing space. We focus our activities on outreach, training, and retraining our workforce. 

People working with B.O.T are motivated by a sense of belonging to a team and company, and clear career progression paths. Providing career advancement and growth opportunities is a powerful motivator that helps talent retention. 

For those who wish to take their career to the next-level, we ensure to provide the necessary training and guidance. We perceive it as a primary indicator of success where a person who started their career with B.O.T progresses by getting a full-time job. 

Those who wish to be engaged on a part-time basis appreciate flexibility of the working arrangements, and opportunity to earn an extra income and get trained on new skills while pursuing another career or studies. 

Overall, prioritizing a sense of belonging, career progression, and flexibility helps to create a positive and supportive work environment. This leads to higher levels of job satisfaction, employee retention, and ultimately, better outcomes for the company's activities and its stakeholders. 

We expect to scale the number of engaged people, as well as form full-time core teams. We are also investing in secure working facilities which would allow us to take on projects with strict data security requirements.

2-Technological capacity building - we take our technological readiness and security extremely seriously and continue investing in enhancing our data processing infrastructure. We are on the way to applying for data-specific quality and security certifications: ISO 27001, and GDPR, and developing a secure data processing protocol. 

We have developed in-house a proprietary Project, Talent, and Impact management platform. The tool allows us to maintain a database of trained workers and select the workers on a project according to their skills, and availability, to manage project workflow, payments, and measure impact. 

We are in the process of acquiring a data labeling platform, which would allow us to control the R&D of the platform as well as minimize costs. 

3-Sales & marketing activities - our impact is directly related to the revenues we generate from the projects we deliver. Therefore, to ensure a solid project pipeline from local and international customers, we are investing in our brand recognition, growing access to new clients and markets, and capitalizing on organic growth from the existing customers and partners.

B.O.T's  Social Objectives are :

- Provide opportunities to acquire new sets of workforce readiness skills (main focus on digital, data processing skills), as a first step of their journey with B.O.T.

- Provide with part or full-time employment opportunities and the ability to prove themselves in a range of skills (e.g. data collection, data annotation) within various industry fields through projects with B.O.T’s customers.

- Provide a base of knowledge and experience to enable youth to launch a career in tech.

- Increase awareness of Social Impact/Procurement and Responsibilities within local and international organizations.

We collect and measure our impact using the in-house developed proprietary platform, and adhere to the following SDGs:

SDG 4: Quality Education: 

5725 individuals were trained in 2023, a total of 14,293 since 2019 (Lebanese and refugees). 

At B.O.T we are committed to providing equal opportunities for free training and upskilling of the young people. We are planning to extend training and retraining opportunities to include more individuals every year, as well as expand and adopt our curriculums to changing needs. 

SDG 5: Gender Equality:  

60% of our workforce are women, and this ratio reaches 80-90% in certain service lines, e.g. AI data labeling projects. 

We aim to continue focusing on women's employability by growing the share of women to 65%.

 SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth:

Jobs creation - since B.O.T's inception 1,076 individuals got jobs and generated income working with B.O.T, 529 in 2022, generating over $850K in salaries. 

We aim to double the number of beneficiaries in Lebanon in Jordan, reaching 1000 yearly active beneficiaries by 2025. 

 SDG 10: Reduced Inequality:

We aim to commit to distributing at least 50% of the revenues in salaries to our beneficiaries. Our mission is to professionally engage and provide tools and information for professional development to individuals in marginalized communities. 

We aim to outreach to more individuals with special needs and increase their share in the workforce to 5%.

We use B.O.T Project and Human resources management platform to collect information about the individuals who work or register to work with B.O.T 

We have been collecting social impact data since 2019, and we use and track the following indicators in dynamics:

SDG 4

Number of beneficiaries registered on the platform 

Number of beneficiaries who attended training

The measure of new skills acquired, %

The measure of engagement, %

SDG  5

% of women in the workforce

Number of women in the workforce

Number of women below 30 years old in the workforce

SDG 8

Number of beneficiaries who worked with B.O.T

Number of beneficiaries who worked with B.O.T on more than 3 projects

Total number of working hours executed by beneficiaries/ year

The average level of effort by a beneficiary (calculated as hours/number of beneficiaries/month)

Beneficiaries' work/ hours equivalent to full-time jobs/month

The measure of income increase, % relative to the previous period

SDG 10

Percentage of individuals from low-income communities in the workforce

Percentage of individuals with low or no income in the workforce

Percentage of individuals with special needs in the workforce

Measures and events taken to spread awareness in the communities 

We also regularly conduct qualitative surveys to get feedback on the beneficiaries' experience with B.O.T as trainees and workers. 

Please refer to this link to access the theory of change document

https://docs.google.com/spread...

We are proud to say that we have developed a proprietary platform for workforce, projects, and impact measurement. The platform is currently only used by B.O.T however the technology is scaleable and transferable and can be used by other social enterprises utilizing similar business models.

We also use data labeling and dataset training platform www.taqadam.io which is built with social impact in mind, it is the only data labeling platform that is a mobile application, which is catered to vulnerable societies where not everyone can afford a computer.

We take data privacy and security very seriously and apply for ISO 27001 certifications and application of GDPR frameworks and data handling security protocols in all our lines of work.

We use a variety of marketing tools, such as LinkedIn, Apollo, Gmass, Munkeysurvey, SurveyCTO and others to take our sales and marketing to the next level.

We are committed to providing equal and universal access to training and job opportunities, tools, and information that constitute a journey of B.O.T's beneficiaries.  We do not discriminate on any basis, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, disability, or any other protected characteristic.

We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to reach their full potential and achieve their goals, regardless of their background or personal circumstances. Therefore, we strive to create an inclusive environment that respects and values diversity, promotes equality, and fosters a sense of belonging for all.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion extends not only to our beneficiaries but also to our staff, workforce, and partners. We encourage and support diversity in all its forms, and we believe that it is essential for creating a vibrant and dynamic community.

B.O.T caters to several types of local and international clients coming from both private and public sectors in various industries. 
Our revenues come from project fees from B2B sales of data services. 

Customer Segment n°1: NGOs, Academia, and Consultancy Firms in Lebanon that require local data collection services.

Customer Segment n°2: NGOs and companies internationally who require remote data collection, and other data processing services

Customer Segment n°3: AI hubs, academia, research, and development organizations who require datasets collection and processing services for earth observation and various use computer vision models (agricultural, waste management, etc.).

Depending on the type of project and service we deliver, it could be an hourly rate, per task or per project. 

Our expenses are split between direct cost - workers who get paid for the work they deliver working on a project, internet, and equipment, which constitute around 40% of the project fees and overheads, which include rent, sales and marketing, R&D, employees' salaries, and other business-related expenses. 

We are able to offer competitive prices and high-quality service because our projects are executed by a scalable and flexible trained workforce and managed by a team of professionals - project managers, QA specialists, and Data scientists, who represent the core team of B.O.T

We also invest in training,  professional development, and retention of our workforce, which contributes to high-quality and satisfied customers, high morale, and increased social impact of our workforce.

The major source of our revenues is project fees paid by customers for the work we deliver. However, we relied on grant funding to set up the company in Lebanon and finance the first 3 years of its operations, as well as set up a subsidiary in Jordan. We are proud to say that we achieved operational profitability and sustainability in Lebanon after 3 years of operations and expect to see the same effect in Jordan. 

Two main factors drive the sustainability of our company.

First, B.O.T.’s business model is designed to ensure beneficiaries are paid for the projects and tasks they are executing. Meanwhile, a percentage of the profit is reinvested into operations. We keep our team lean and overheads low, while focusing on increasing revenues from existing clients and bringing new revenue-generating opportunities. 

As an example, B.O.T is launching AI data service internationally which will significantly expand the geographical and sectors of our customer's outreach and will diversify our revenues to mitigate country risks related to Lebanon.  The incoming service will generate more work opportunities for women and youth and also provide an influx of income to the platform. 

In 2022 we reached a break-even point in our operations in Lebanon, whereas grant funds raised were used mainly for scaling up and expansions, i.e. we are aiming to achieve the same operational efficiency in Jordan in 2023-2024.  

Another sustainability factor for this project is tech expertise building and transfer. B.O.T aims to introduce AI within local communities through Knowledge Stations and trainers. This will enrich the knowledge stations’ training library and will increase awareness of AI and future jobs within local communities.

Most of our revenues (70%) come from recurring clients. It took some time to build a brand, and trust and become a go-to provider in our primary line of service, data collection. However, after having been in the space for three years we can acknowledge that the hard work yielded results and the model proven efficient and sustainable. 

As we are launching a new service - Data training for AI on international markets, we expect the journey to be longer and rougher however we expect the results to be a multiple of what we were able to achieve in Lebanon and Jordan. 

Solid team, marketing strategy, and strategic partnerships are the key success factors for B.O.T

Since 2019, we have been supported by UNICEF, EBRD, and Alfanar Foundation to launch our operations. The proportion of grant funding versus revenues has been steadily decreasing YoY, from 70% in 2019 to 20% in 2022. We expect to become a grant-free company by 2025.