Microworking (PDF, 59 pages, 1106KB) - Forfás

FORFÁS MICROWORKING
1.6.1 Aggregating Work for a Marginalised or Disadvantaged Community
Samasource 8 is a non-profit crowdsourcing company providing employment to people living in
poverty in developing countries by giving them work that can be performed using a computer.
Companies can use the Samasource platform to upload and process files as projects for tasks
in the areas of text and content, data mining and tagging as well as transcriptions of audio
and video files. The Samasource team breaks down projects into individual tasks and
distributes the jobs to groups such as women in India, refugees in Somalia and workers in
Kenya.
In a similar vein, MobileWorks proposed introducing its microwork outsourcing programme in
Jamaica in July 2012. The company's target is to generate about 1,000 jobs within half a year,
and up to 10,000 in the long-term 9 .
The model is potentially replicable but does not seem to have been successfully emulated so
far. This may be related to the considerable challenges in securing and developing
relationships with the work-providers (Microsoft, Google etc.). However, the model has
potential for development for disadvantaged and marginalised communities in Ireland if
relationships can be developed with the work providers.
1.6.2 Micro-Volunteering
Micro-volunteering can be both virtual and traditional. In the virtual space, Sparked.com is a
micro-volunteering website where volunteers can assist charities, community and voluntary
organisations mainly in relation to tasks which can be completed on a computer (text editing,
graphic design, web-design, fund-raising ideas, contact databases etc.). The community
works on a crowd-source model whereby a number of people work on the same project and
the organisation chooses the best option emerging from the creative process. From the website
it appears that most projects have 2 to 6 people working on them.
Help From Home (helpfromhome.org) provides information on micro-volunteering
opportunities that can be conducted from home. In January 2011, it was mentioned in the UK
Government Green Paper, ‘Giving’ as an example of a platform that can help people
volunteer in non-traditional ways as part of the Big Society vision. In April 2011, it published
How To Set Up a Micro-volunteering Project, a 40 page handbook for charities and nonprofits.
The mobile phone company Orange launched a 'Do Some Good' application
(http://dosomegood.orange.co.uk/) which aims to encourage individuals to volunteer using
the mobile technologies at their disposal.
Following a more traditional route is the Spots of Time initiative (www.spotsoftime.org.uk)
being piloted for care homes in London and Essex. The objective is to provide care homes
with a link to skilled people in the neighbourhood to make it easy for them to capitalise on
the skills, talents and enthusiasm of those who live nearby. The types of activities chosen
mean that volunteers do not need to be vetted.
8 Samasource has 16 work centres across nine countries including India, Kenya, Haiti, Pakistan and
Uganda. They provide free, specialised technology training and all the workers are certified. It works
with local delivery centre partners who recruit, hire and train poor young women who have no formal
work experience and are currently earning less than a living wage.
9 Jamaica Information Service, 28 August 2012
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