Jeni as a Bangladeshi

As part of GSM’s 20th year anniversary, the association hired TelecomTV to go around the world filming 20 countries being changed by mobile technology; the documentary will be previewed at the GSM Mobile Asia Congress next month in Macau, and premiered at several film festivals next year. Today was a blur of logistics as we guided a camera crew to film areas of my project.

Now that I am properly situated back at my desk, I thought this would be a good time to give an update on the absolute highlight of my time here - my project

The main challenge is to figure out how to link the development of industry skills to a longterm overall strategy of alleviating poverty. It’s a complex topic, but we’ve made incredible progress. Perhaps the best way to explain our model in a nutshell is as follows (yes, I will forever be a Visio dork):

The advantages here are that companies save recruitment and post-entry training costs, and the students are guaranteed employment. But the even COOLER part is that we’ve been able to turn CompanyABC into huge telecom players such as Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, and SchoolDEF is a nonprofit technical school created especially for underprivileged youth - the school is unique in that its focus is not to develop scholars, but to provide a means for these urban slum children to get the employment to support their families (No, child labor here is not a controversy. It is simply reality).

I love this project from two main angles -

1. It is sustainable. I’m not a fan of companies going out of their way to ‘give’ and ‘donate’ money with the intention of making any kind of big social change. Companies exist because they make profit, not because they are charity houses. To guarantee that a social investment actually lasts beyond its marketing appeal, corporate initiatives to address social issues should first and foremost guarantee that the company is either generating income, or reducing costs. Period.
2. I’m a huge fan of children’s education - I spent years teaching children on weekends at Hope Chinese School, did an entire undergrad thesis on underprivileged youth education (which I unfortunately couldn’t be there to finish, but my team did an incredible job!), and plan to invest in schools in developing countries when I’m old, retired, and rich.

I love it. 

And I love the children. Being there and interacting with these kids is amazing. Seeing how eager they are to learn, despite their socio-economic status, despite their full-time jobs (they have to work to support their families)  makes me somewhat embarrased about our own attitudes towards education back home. They literally drag me around to demonstrate how to assemble a TV, make a booklet, fix a car engine, or sew dress shirts. I try to communicate with them using the two Bengali phrases I know, and they respond back in broken English. But I think we get along just fine. And today, one of the girls asked me for an autograph, and said something about wanting to be like me when they they grow up. I smiled, but with a lump in my throat.