Original article here
Author: Kristin Toussaint
Around the world, there are more than 100 million refugees who were forced to flee their homes because of violence, persecution, climate change, and more. Being displaced comes with a slew of challenges, of course, like finding work—made even more difficult by a language barrier or a mismatch in employment skills.
Japan, for example, has accepted thousands of refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, but they may not easily assimilate into the culture or master the language quickly enough to get a job. Still, refugees need to support their families, want the dignity of work, and don’t want to be seen as burdens to their host countries, says Neeti Shukla, cofounder and social impact officer of software company Automation Anywhere. “Technology can actually be that language that bridges this,” she says, “because you don’t need to learn Japanese to work in a technology job as a refugee.”
As the refugee crisis is growing, so too is the demand for workers with digital skills. Automation Anywhere has long focused on helping upskilling workers. In 2023, it expanded those efforts specifically for refugees through its Global Gateway Program, launched in partnership with Robo Co-Op, a cooperative that empowers refugees with digital skills. This program is the winner of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award in the corporate social responsibility category.
“There’s all sorts of refugees in every part of the world now. So our aim is, how can we help them also become a part of this digital revolution that we are seeing, and not be left behind?” Shukla says. The Global Gateway Program teaches refugees automation skills in as little as three months, opening up remote job opportunities. Some may go through the program faster, especially if they already have tech skills. The curriculum is “bite-sized,” Shukla says, so people can choose how much time they put in daily and balance this upskilling with their other family or home obligations.
Robo Co-Op provides a supportive community for refugees as well as a curriculum, while Automation Anywhere provides scholarships, courses, certificates, and on-the-job training opportunities in which refugees can test new Automation Anywhere features and showcase their skills. In some cases, the company will also donate laptops and hardware. Automation Anywhere is a low-code or no-code software that allows people to create bots that automate business practices such as organizing or analyzing data in spreadsheets. “You don’t have to get a two-year engineering computer science degree to learn these technologies,” Shukla says.
Because Automation Anywhere works with all sorts of industries, those trained in these skills can expand on their prior workforce experience. “Let’s say I was a hospital administrator. I can be a better hospital administrator because I know automation,” she says. “Where they have worked in the past, or learnt in the past, or had a career in the past—it’s really augmented by this learning.”
Global Gateway began as a pilot program before officially launching in November 2023. There aren’t yet figures on the number of refugees who have gone through the program, but Robo Co-Op takes cohorts of 10 to 15 people at a time. A handful of Syrian refugees in Turkey and Ukrainian and Afghan refugees in Tokyo have already received digital skills training. A few of those refugees have gotten jobs training other refugees in these digital skills. Automation Anywhere and Robo Co-Op aim to create 100,000 job opportunities for refugees in the next three years.
Explore the full list of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, 281 projects that are making the world more accessible, equitable, and sustainable for everyone. We’ve selected the companies, organizations, and nonprofits making the biggest impact across 50 categories, including architecture, energy, finance, transportation, and more.
