Nanojobs: Towards an Open Crowd Working Platform for Refugees and Displaced Persons

Abstract

The global displaced population numbers in excess of 80 million people. They often are not permitted to work or receive monetary benefits while holding refugee status or seeking asylum. Where allowed, they face discrimination and other challenges associated with their status. Despite the perception of refugees as a financial burden on a host country, research suggests they can positively impact an economy if provided with opportunities to work. Existing crowd working platforms are not designed to accommodate refugees and displaced persons and the constraints in which they operate. Major challenges in designing and deploying a crowd working system for displaced persons include identity authentication, matching qualified workers with tasks, training workers, device heterogeneity, and intermittent and low quality Internet connectivity, payment, and tax issues. In this paper, we proposed Nanojobs, an open crowd working platform for refugees and displaced persons. We provide a high level conceptual overview of the platform based on six design principles and a summary of the current status of the project.