LEILA JANAH and SAMASOURCE

"You don't have to accept the world for what it is.  You can mold it into what you think it could be."

Innovator and entrepreneur Leila Janah is the founder of Samasource, one of the best examples I've seen of social enterprise. Rather than a few people making billions of dollars from data entry outsourcing, Janah wants to make it possible for billions of people to earn a few dollars, transforming their lives.  Founded in 2008, Samasource has paid and trained over 3500 women and youth living in the world's poorest communities and disbursed nearly $3 million in wages.

"Sama means equal and our mission is to give work rather than handouts.   Samasource connects people living in poverty to work via the Internet. Samasource provides work to poor women and youth in East Africa, South Asia and Haiti through microwork, a model we developed to break down data projects into small tasks. In parallel, Samasource offers high quality data services  to enterprise customers including LinkedIn, eBay, Walmart.com, and the US State Department."

Take some time to watch Janah's TED talk, read this short profile or learn about Samasource and her other inspirational projects. 

"Give work, and every family can afford three meals a day for their bodies. Give work and every child can enjoy education and culture for her mind.  Give work, and one day in the deep future people everywhere can enjoy dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits."

ps. Another wonderful model is the Women's Digital League in Pakistan started by Maria Umar   http://mashable.com/2013/06/29/pakistan-woman-entrepreneur-2/