MIT Media Lab

Konbit

Master’s Thesis · 2011

Designed, built and deployed a product in Haiti.

An effort to help organizations source local labor instead of relying on their internal employees. After natural disasters, many NGOs flood developing countries with outside help but have little ability to plug into the local community for employment. In a country like Haiti, where over half the population is literate and 70% have never had a job, the lack of interface with locals is a giant missed opportunity and highly problematic.

After presenting to the United Nations and winning the MIT Grand Ideas 1st place prize, Konbit became a reality.

After the Haitian earthquake, we created a service to help locals (literate or not) call our automated service, record skills based upon their life experiences as compelling, story-like messages. After the call, messages are transcribed and translated by Haitians in Haiti, and uploaded to our servers at MIT to be searched by employers.

Konbit was a free service in response to the earthquake in Haiti to help Haitians find jobs as part of the country’s reconstruction. Full-stack development of software and the construction of a physical that was deployed in Haiti, installed into Digicel Telecom racks. The automated service sought to boost the Haitian economy by helping non-governmental organizations, such as Partners In Health, find local workers instead of outsourcing labor. More than 50% of the country was illiterate with no access to digital resources, so Konbit allowed unemployed Haitians to call a toll-free number to record their skills and life experiences. Messages were transcribed into an online database that NGOs can search, where original audio clips were provided for additional emotional insight.