The a16z Show - a16z Podcast: Mobility and the Global Refugee Crisis

Episode Date: December 16, 2016

"We throw around words like 'crisis' very easily, but this is a global crisis, and it is of historic proportions," says current U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken about the refugee crisis (for which he and his department mobilized a response that significantly accelerated government efforts to assist refugees, as well as engage the tech sector). "People don't realize that before 2011, the number of Syrian refugees was zero," shares Lina Sergie Attar of the non-profit Karam Foundation, which aims to build a better future for Syria through education, smart aid, and sustainable development programs for internally displaced communities inside Syria as well as refugee populations in neighboring countries. Yet in this episode of the a16z Podcast (with Sonal Chokshi and a16z's Matt Spence, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Middle East) both agree that it's a crisis that requires a global response, including from the tech industry. Especially when technologies like the smartphone, which "is the most important object" that refugees have -- for migration, communication, documentation, connection, commerce, more -- can and do play a role. But we need to go beyond the "mobile migration" narrative here: Maybe we shouldn't focus on promoting superhero 'migration' success stories or citing statistics, and instead find out more about the broader context and details of refugees' day to day lives. Maybe it's not about being 'solutionistic' ... but is about finding solutions. Maybe it's about the intersection of foreign policy and technology; it most certainly is about our collective humanity. image: Mustafa Bader / Wikimedia Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's episode of the A6 and Z podcast recorded a month ago focuses on the refugee crisis, as well as where tech may come in. The conversation is co-hosted by A6NZ policy team partner Matt Spence, who was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Middle East, Lena Sergei Atar, who is the co-founder of the Karam Foundation, which focuses on education, development, and smart aid for displaced communities in Syria and in neighboring countries. And finally, we have Tony Blinken, the current Deputy Secretary of State,

who has focused on the global refugee crisis. Before we consider the role of tech, we begin by talking about the sheer scope and magnitude of the problem, something no single conversation can do justice, who are the refugees beyond statistics? It's really important to put this in perspective. You know, we throw around words like crisis very easily,

but this is a global crisis, and it is of historic proportions. Think about it this way. We are now dealing with the largest single wave of human displacement around the world since World War II, more people on the move because they are displaced from their homes. And if you put all of these people together who are now currently displaced into one country, it would be the 25th or 24th largest country on earth, bigger than South Korea, bigger than Spain.

And what's in the headlines, of course, is Syria, but it's global in nature. We have refugees, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, a dozen countries in Africa, and of course Latin America as well. And because it's a global crisis, it actually demands a global response. No single country can deal with this effectively on its own. Why is it so bad now? Like what has happened that the crisis is so profound more than almost any other time in history? I think you've got a confluence of factors.

One is that, unfortunately, we're seeing more conflict in different places, but also, and ironically in a sense, the spread of information has actually, in a way, exacerbated the crisis because people are now more aware of what's going on outside of where they're living. They're more aware that life can be different somewhere else. They're in greater touch with people who have already left and have gone somewhere else. And that too creates a sort of pull factor that didn't exist as much in the past when people were more closed off. I mean, it is a global crisis and millions and millions of people are displaced right now, and they come from all over the world. But for Syria specifically, we have a situation where we have

over 5 million Syrian refugees outside the country, over 6 million internally displaced, which means that there are more than half of the original population of Syria now does not live in their homes. People don't realize that before 2011, the number of Syrian refugees was zero. And so it's this huge crisis at this staggering scale that happened very, very quickly. And I think that's one of the reasons why it takes more precedence in the media, in addition to the way that the crisis unfolded, especially with the waves of refugees going from Turkey to Greece and through Europe and what we saw last year and all of the drownings and all of the people in these camps. And this problem is continuing because of the conflict that continues in Syria. And I think that's one of the most important reasons that people have to keep in mind is that this is not some kind of natural disaster.

This is a man-made conflict, man-made reasons. And if the violence stopped, especially the airstrikes, the refugee crisis would at least be stemmed. And a lot of refugees that I know would be able to return to their homes. Gleena, you talked about the flood of refugees. And I think people have heard a lot of the statistics. But could you give me a sense of who are they? Where are they coming from? What were their jobs before they became refugees?

What could they do when resettled somewhere else in a more stable society? And even socioeconomically, it depends on where you're looking at. If you're looking at the immediate host countries and even then it would depend on where they are. The closer to the border they are, the less money they had to flee with probably. It's the least pleasant to be living in the IDP camps that are inside Syrian borders and then the refugee camps that are right outside Syrian borders. The further away you get from Syria, the more you see that it's really Syria's middle class that was able to flee into Europe, something that people don't realize watching the images of Syrian refugees arriving to Europe,

which is an extremely difficult journey, but actually has cost these refugee families thousands and thousands of dollars to actually get a place on a smuggler's boat. It's the businessman, the educated, the university students, and people who had a very good life in Syria, lived in host countries for a few years, watched their savings being depleted and used really the last of their savings to be able to take that journey. When you get to the United States, the snapshot of refugees is very diverse. It goes from people that were able to get through the whole vetting process and get here. And some of these people have never traveled outside Syria before and are finding life in the United States very, alienating. I mean, it comes to my own parents who are American, but had to flee Aleppo in 2012,

and both of them are doctors. But when they came here in 2012, they came with their four suitcases. It wasn't their choice. That's a perspective that I personally see as a daughter of immigrants who came in the 70s and came with the immigrant mentality and wanting to make a better future for themselves and their families. I'm also a daughter of immigrants, and I was born and raised. I was born and raised in the U.S., but my family, my extended family, my mom's side was in Uganda and they were kicked out during the 70s with Ediamine. My mom's sister went to Sweden and my grandparents went to the U.K. And I think that's the other side of this discussion. You mentioned the impact on receiving countries and communities. Can we talk a little bit about that, like what some of the fears and

concerns are and what's top of mind for folks? If you visit Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, these are the countries that have received the most Syrian refugees because, as Lena said, they're the neighboring countries. And put this in perspective, in Lebanon today, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the entire population is a Syrian refugee. There are more Syrian children in Lebanese public schools than there are Lebanese children in these schools. Imagine the burden that this puts on these countries. Transpose it to the United States. The number of refugees in Lebanon, if you transpose that to the United States, it would be the equivalent of us taking 70 million people. And you know the debates we're having about taking 10,000 Syrian refugees. So these countries are bearing a very significant burden.

And Lena's exactly right. Ultimately, the way to end this challenge and problem is to end the civil war in Syria and to stop the bombing. And we're working 25 hours a day trying to do that, even just getting a cessation of hostilities to take that pressure off and get humanitarian assistance flowing. But as that's happening, what's driving them when they get to Jordan, Lebanon, to Turkey are two things. One is access to education. They want their kids to be in school. And second is the ability to work. What you're seeing is so many people and so many middle class people who've left take their savings with them. 90% are not in refugee camps. They are actually integrated into host communities. That means they have to pay for housing. And that means if

they can't work, they're going to deplete their savings. And they're going to reach a point where the money's gone. It's very hard in many of these places for adults to work as a policy matter to get countries to change their policies to allow people to work. But in the absence of that, it drives kids into the gray market to do jobs that it would be harder to detect. That means they're not in school. And even when they want to go to school, they may not have access because the schools are overburdened. So we've been working very hard on that, getting access to classrooms. There's been real progress in all three of these countries. But you're still leaving lots of kids out of school and the risk of a lost generation. So we have to look at also how we can

help these countries of first asylum and first refuge meet the burden and then how we can do more, including in the United States, to resettle more people. But Lena said something really important too. So many people who are in this situation, it's not that they want to come here or want to come to Europe or Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan. Their highest aspiration is to come home. They don't want to be perceived as a burden, which is how I think a lot of people portray that. But tragically, here's what we know. Civil wars like the one in Syria don't end overnight. On average, we're looking at a decade. And in the case of something as complex as Syria, when you have multiple actors involved, well beyond a decade. And Syria is now in year six of the civil war. How did that reality play out with countries and some of the examples?

We just right now have a situation where there are millions of actions. Afghan refugees in Pakistan who are finding the climate in Pakistan to be less hospitable than it was, who are being driven back into Afghanistan. Needless to say, Afghanistan's not in the ideal situation to take in more of its own citizens at this point. That's creating a whole new crisis. You talked about the sheer numbers of people coming here. And for Americans, Americans both want to be helpful, but are scared and want to make sure we know who are coming in. The idea of vetting has been very important. Most people don't understand actually how intense the vetting is. Exactly right. Yeah. And I would actually add, too, that it's not always going to be the example of two parents who are

doctors, but there are people who are productive members of society in so many other ways. How do you know and do you, is it good to even try to, is that the right thing to do to try to filter that? Well, a couple of things. First, we have to keep in mind one basic fact is that the overwhelming majority of refugees, people who are leaving everything behind, putting their lives in danger to come cross an ocean, put themselves in the hands of human traffickers, even. These are people who are fleeing violence, not perpetrating violence. And it's really important to just start with that basic premise. You're right, because there's an association in people's minds. And it's exactly the reverse. They are fleeing terrorism. They're not terrorists. Second,

when it comes to the United States, we're almost in a unique position because the overwhelming majority of refugees who come here are actually referred in the first instance by the United Nations. And they've gone through an entire process of vetting first by the United Nations and one of its agencies. Then when they're referred to us, they go through our process, which is extraordinary in its focus and depth. We have multiple security agencies that are doing very detailed, background checks, investigations of anyone seeking to come here. On average. We do that. I had no idea. It takes two years for someone to come to the United States. And what type of data do they, does like the FBI or state department use or process of this? You've got the alphabet soup of agencies that are involved in this in different

ways, not just the State Department, but the FBI, the CIA, the NTC, the other intelligence agencies, all pulling whatever data is available, interviews by people who are trained in the skill set, interviews of people who know the person applying to be a refugee, very, very sophisticated work biometrics, and all of this is pulled together and marshaled together. And job number one for these agencies, for the government, is security. Because even though, again, as I said, 99.9% are people fleeing violence, not perpetrators, trading it, we want to make sure that that point 1% doesn't get in. And that's a lot of information. Is there more that either data analytics or tech or other things can do to help more accurately

assess what these threats are? Yeah, the short answer is yes. And it's something that as sophisticated as the system is, as much work and effort as already goes into it, we're constantly looking for ways to perfect it. And one of the ways is through technology. What's striking to me is how much more vetting goes on there than it does for any other job, any other. bringing a child into this world. I mean, there is no sense of that level of detail on existing citizens by any means. And what's the other thing is it's important to recognize too that if you were a terrorist trying to come into this country, the last way you would come in is as a refugee because it's the hardest way to get into the United States. You'd probably be more likely to come in.

There's some other mechanisms. As a tourist. Yeah. We're talking a lot right now on what's happening during migration. What happens post resettlement? There's a lot of technologies and new companies out there that have a lot of things around like mobile visas. We have a company in our own portfolio teleport that does. What are some of the technologies that are post-settlement? Look, this is critical because two things. One, if you're in a country of first for future asylum like Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, as I mentioned, what people desperately need are access to education for their kids and access to employment for the parents. In fact, visiting in Beirut, one of the community centers established by, in this case, Caritas, a Catholic,

relief to support refugees from Syria, you'd go from room to room. And in the first room, the men, the climate in that room could best be described as depressed. And the reason was these men had been stripped of their dignity because they couldn't work, didn't have access to jobs, couldn't provide for their families. And they felt it. And then you moved on to the women in the next room and there was a frantic energy in that room. But that was because they were desperate to figure out how to get their kids or keep their kids in school. The good news was when you move to talk to the children, they still had that innate optimism that comes from being a child. But technology can play a huge role. So just to cite one example, in education. These classrooms are overwhelmed and overburdened in these countries.

They can't keep up with the indigenous demand, much less refugees. Now, huge efforts have been made, and all three of those countries have done incredible work to actually create greater access, but there's still big gaps. So there are distance learning platforms that can make a huge difference and sometimes this can be run through UN agencies and other and NGOs. But distance learning,

you mean like audacity and like MOOCs or... If you can get the hardware into the hands of children and then you can get the software on the hardware with the right curriculum, then you can actually prevent a gap from growing. And it creates a stop gap. while you're trying to find space for kids in the formal education system.

We're seeing that start to have an impact. That's just one way of doing things. Same on the employment front. And again, the numbers are not big, but the ability of some people to be able through the Internet to actually be employed at a distance, to be making something or providing some service that can then be delivered through the Internet,

that can take some burden off of the local job market. market and create opportunities that that wouldn't otherwise exist. Now, it's still a relatively small thing and it tends to cater to more skilled people, but we see this working as well. We're trying to expand that. Okay, so the story that we've been reading a lot in the news, and I read two articles in both Wired and New York Times in the past year, it's a story about the role of the smartphone and what people are calling this modern migration. There's mapping, there's GPS, there's messaging, There's apps that help people find a place to sleep. My former colleague at Wired, she wrote this line that almost every need is met with mobile.

But the flip side of this is that there's also a question for me about who has access to these mobile phones. Is it people who could afford them in their home countries? What about confiscation of mobile phones at checkpoints? People asking for passwords to your Facebook accounts or mobile phones are also surveillance devices. So there's sort of a double-edged sword here. I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on how mobile phones are playing a unique role in this particular modern migration. Yeah, well, I think you've really touched on some of the key aspects of this. There is connectivity that otherwise wouldn't exist. That means a lot of things. It means that

families are actually in touch with one another. That's vitally important, whether it's families that are themselves in the refugee flow or family members who may already have gotten to another country, even though they're underfunded and overburdened, there still are a lot of resources out there. But if people don't know it, if they can't get the information, it doesn't do them any good. So having that kind of connectivity and getting that kind of information flow going is vital. It's a basic life support system. I can't overestimate how important this smartphone has been to Syrian refugees and even to the Syrian revolution in general and social media and YouTube and connecting information, getting information out from inside Syria,

recording protests, recording atrocities, recording air strikes, recording basically everything that journalists cannot access inside Syria because of the regimes closing off Syria really to any kind of outside media that is not overseen by the government. So I think that we've seen an arc using technology and in terms of connections from the beginning of the Arab Spring Syrian uprising all the way through the refugee crisis, refugees, the most important object that they have is their smartphone. One of the economic statistics is that smartphones are chopping into smugglers and traffickers business. There's a really popular Facebook group that's called, and this is a title,

Smuggle yourself to Europe without a trafficker, and that's supposed to be the most popular Facebook group among refugees. They can't make the journey from Turkey to Greece without it. People were using GPS coordination systems to connect with different boats and different people. Families often get separated during the journey. The only way that they can connect is through their phones. One Syrian refugee that I'm in connection with in Istanbul, she says WhatsApp is everything. I can't live without WhatsApp.

That's the most important thing I have. I don't know any Syrian family, including my own, that doesn't have their family WhatsApp. group because that's the only way that you can actually see each other because people don't meet each other anymore inside Syria. So it's very, very important as a piece of connection and also as for documentation. One of the saddest uses of a phone that I've ever witnessed was in the Altime IDP camp that's in northern Syria, which I visited in late 2012. 20,000 people have been there in that camp now for over five years and they live still in plastic tents and in the mud and in the dust and they don't have access to bathrooms or heating systems or really any kind of basic necessities

for years and one of the women lost both of her children in a campfire and and she there was a fire in her tent within a few minutes she lost both of her children and all she had left of them were the pictures of them on her phone. And when I met her, she told me her whole story, and she said, I can never lose this phone because that's all I have left of them. I lost my home. I lost my family.

I lost my kids. And all I have left is my phone. It's heartbreaking. From the government side, the phone can actually be used to help with civilian casualties. So if you're a refugee being victim to strikes that are happening, using the phones to report when you hear airplanes overhead or drones overhead or things like that,

it can communicate a huge amount of information. I felt when I was in the government, for government policymakers, there's this assumption from the outside that our intelligence collection is omnipotent and journals we can get information from everywhere. But it's really the individual stories that you get from people, which can show where should we devote resources and what should we be doing. And I think one of the things that we're seeing too, and Lena mentioned this as well, if you're trying to monitor a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities,

sometimes the groups that would normally do that can't get in, don't have access. but the people do, they're there. And just as you said, Matt, there's also a two-way communication possibility so that if people are in harm's way, they can hopefully be warned and can get out of the way, or conversely, they can report that something's happening

that we didn't know about, and maybe we can help stop it. If they're equipped with a smartphone, they're able to report in real time whether there's a violation. I mean, one of the things that just struck for me and made it personal is, you know, when I would go to the Middle East

and I went there 30 times in three years, And I was talking to a senior Jordanian official. He said, look, I understand the protection and you have the best planes and the best intelligence in the world. But he's like, do you know what, Matt, what I really need? I need four million jobs. I remember we were at, you know, an office near the Zotry refugee camp. And we're meeting with the group of women. They first showed us their mumble phones.

And they showed us how they were using Facebook and other online platforms to sell handmade goods. When you're sitting in the situation room, those are not the types of things you're trying to think about. I think that's basically the biggest issue is that. there was never enough listening to the refugees and to the communities. What we saw in Zatari was basically the director, the UNHCR director of Zatari camp said, we came to build a camp and the Syrians came to build a city. And it took that long to realize that these Syrian refugees

are coming from a background, educated, have funds, fleeing violence. And they weren't going to sit around in a camp waiting for their two UNHCR meals a day and sit there in a camp for the 17 average years, they are going to set up shop, they are going to trade and build an economy, an internal economy, and make things and sell things and figure it out because that's who they are. And we see that across the board with Syrian refugees. And it's really heartbreaking because I feel like even the word innovation or apps for humanitarian aid have become almost meaningless because everybody thinks that they can create an app and it's going to solve the problem or we can paste the word innovation on anything

and that basically becomes innovative and it's it's really not the most innovative solutions are coming from the people themselves and this is what we're seeing in the media with like the feel good stories of refugees who've made it in Germany or made it in the US and brought pieces of their culture and now they're very successful even these stories are painting refugees as almost these superheroes that they're going to come and they're going to be in the Olympics or they're going to come and build an unbelievable restaurant or they're going to overcome their obstacles in such a grand way. It also creates a sense of over-expectation on what refugees, not what refugees can do, but what they're supposed to be doing. So I think the most important part is to take these

technologies and take places like Silicon Valley's strengths at scaling, a solution, but those solutions really have to come and be co-authored, if not completely, basically absorbed by the communities themselves. I think that's so important that you brought that up. It's really about empowering voices, whether you're creating tools for people, whether you're a user of a tool. When you talk about innovation as an overuse word, I mean, I agree with that. We're in the business of that.

So it's kind of hard not to use that word. But I will say that the concept that comes to mind is this concept of jugati. innovation, which is a term that Navi Rajdu wrote about a few years ago, but it's based on this word in India, Jugad, which is like you have very limited constraints and you have to figure out how to innovate within these limited constraints. And there's a lot of resourcefulness that comes with that. To your point, Lena, the flip side of it is exactly right that I don't think we can expect the superhero narrative either when people reference Steve Jobs. Like there's a million Steve Jobs in hiding in a current cohort of refugees, because Steve Jobs, you know, technically

was part Syrian. But the reality is like these are just people living their daily lives who just want to be who they are and contribute in some natural way. And I do think that we have a tendency sometimes in tech to get a little solutionistic. But we are in the business of thinking of solutions. And so that said, where are the areas that we can build tools to empower education and some of the other things that you're talking about? One of the most frustrating things for me as someone who runs a nonprofit, when I constantly find, for instance, or apps or curriculum about coding, for instance. If we teach kids how to code, then problem solved, we can all become coders. The solution is not in teaching kids how to code. The solution is

how do you introduce Syrian refugee kids or any group of kids to the concept of coding in a way that connects them to passions that they might use in the future to or not use, depending on what what they actually want to do in life and take that and run. We had a journalist with us on one of our missions that we do in refugee schools in Turkey, and we take all sorts of mentors with us who are artists, journalists, writers, dentists, all sorts of people. And we had a journalist with us, and the kids saw her, and they asked her what she does because they saw her taking notes. And she told them, I'm a journalist. And they all said, we want to learn journalism. And she set up a workshop the next day, which we hadn't planned for right in the garden because we didn't even have a classroom for her.

And within a year, because she created a Facebook group with the kids that she gave the journalism class to, and she went back with another group of journalists. These are all like New York Times, AP journalists, and they did a video editing class. And in terms of scale, it's very interesting because the first group she had was 40 kids. The Facebook group became around 20. And then the actual group who took the advanced journalism class was about 10. And out of those 10 kids after one year who never thought they ever wanted to do journalism, we had four who now work full-time for a newspaper in Istanbul as their job.

And one of the kids has two front-page stories. And that's just from introducing kids to different ideas, different creative concepts, things that they were not open to before they don't have exposure to. And especially the teenagers, which we think are the most vulnerable refugee population, both boys and girls, because we have a very limited amount of time to intervene and get them either to stay in school, get them into higher education opportunities, or get them to be able to train in useful skills that they could actually use to have the employment opportunities. As Lena said, it's very important that those solutions be not just designed with refugees in mind, but also designed by refugees because they will have a much better innate understanding. of where their interests are, what their needs are, than anyone doing it from the outside.

So government's role in a sense is to be a convener, a catalyzer, bringing these groups together. We're finding that virtually everything we're trying to do in foreign policy is at the intersection of foreign policy and technology. And so many of the answers have a technological component. They may not be the entire answer or the only answer, but it's often part of it. And so if we're trying to do arms control around the world,

if we're trying to monitor a ceasefire, If we're trying to figure out how to promote greater health security, energy security, food security, there's going to be a technological component. And same with the refugee crisis. So we actually come out here on a regular basis and we get the best minds we can find to sit together and to think together around solving a problem. And we've done that with distance education for refugees and found a lot of very good practical ideas coming from that, that some of which are now being applied. I was frustrated with Washington bureaucracy as much as anyone. and I was in the administration for seven years. But the thing that surprises me is there is an enormous sense of mission,

both in Washington and here. People want to solve things. Like they're willing to work hard. It's not about the pay and it's not about the risk of failure. Like you're willing to do it. You just want to feel like you're part of something bigger and then you're empowered to do it. When you think about technology as building tools, at the end of the day, our job is a build solutions.

And it doesn't mean that it replaces structural things that need to happen as well. But it comes from LinkedIn's program matching, you know, refugees with job opportunities or Airbnb matching housing or, you know, tech fugies, the conference in London that's bringing all these people together and trying to build new types of apps. We don't want to appify immigration. But you're also telling me that there's this important awareness of how a lot of these problems are actually, they do require government awareness. Yeah. We need to realize, as Lena said, these are man-made problems. And governments are dealing with complicated political issues. So for Silicon Valley, for example, as I think there has been

resistance in the past about getting involved in some of these because it can seem political. You know, it's one thing to deal with response to like a hurricane or an earthquake. You know, another thing to look at issues that get into very complicated immigration of political issues. And I think you need to strike the right balance of going in and helping on the ground, but also realizing that there are many players on the ground. There are non-government organizations who have been dealing with this for a while and you want to make sure is when you're going in, you're aware of the larger context, so you're not doing harm. But there's another side, too, that I heard a lot, whether you're talking to the governments of Jordan or Turkey or Lebanon,

that faces the refugees, where on the one hand, they obviously want to help address the problem and the suffering that happens to our refugees. On the other hand, they're concerned about creating a new permanent citizen group that they have not anticipated for. So there's a delicate balance between helping to solve the problems that they need, while also not creating the conditions that what is meant to be a temporary refugee camp instead becomes a permanent city, where, in fact, a lot of the refugees actually just want to go home. And this is where government can actually play a key role. There's always a policy component to this too.

So, for example, with Jordan, we've worked with the Europeans and with Jordan to develop a compact so that if a product is made in a certain area and refugees are part of making that product, it will get some kind of preferential treatment when it's exported to another market. But the companies involved will employ the local population and employ refugees at the same time. Similarly, a lot of these countries, because they're so-called middle-income countries, don't qualify for the lowest lending rates from the international financial institutions. We've instituted a new policy that gives them access to those rates in order to help meet some of the burden. So this is an area where governments can really make a difference in changing policy. One other example, when it comes to education, one of the most important things we can do because of this lack of capacity in a Turkey, Lebanon, or Jordan is to allow kids to get informal,

education while we're trying to find space for them in the formal system. But that informal education needs to be accredited. You need to be able, once you've had a year or two of learning in a community center in a UN agency, the ability to have that translate into credit for the formal system. And that's a policy issue because in a lot of countries, they don't want. And there's a tech issue too. I mean, fintech, for example, Alex here says often, if you had to recreate a bank right now, what would you do differently? Everything. You know, I mean, you're dealing with some areas where you don't have normal credit scores, you have people who may have access to mobile money,

but not actually credit cards. The real gap I see here is, here are the policy needs, here's what's going on the ground. Let's tell people what's happening. And then combine that with people who are just thinking about kind of solutions. And I would add solutions

that are also tools enabling the creation of other things as well, to lean as well. Exactly. Both Washington having humility, but Silicon Valley having the humility. And knowing is those tools and solutions can only go so far,

but there's a lot more they can go, but realize what the broader context you operate in so we don't get carried away and say, oh, tech is going to lead us all to hold hands and sing kumbaya. What this really points to is that given the complexity, the magnitude of the problem, no single actor, whether it's government, whether it's NGOs, whether it's the international relief system, whether it's Silicon Valley. No single actor can solve it alone. But together, working together, coordinated together, there are solutions. And that's what we need to do. We need to bring people together to channel their energies and their focus on this challenge.

For people listening, what can they do concretely to help? We're seeing it often starts with an individual just having an idea or saying we should figure out a way to help and how do we bring what's unique about our company to bear on this problem? So you mentioned Airbnb before. They are now soliciting their host community to take in refugees on an emergency basis. It may be as simple as simply opening up job opportunities to refugees. in most of these companies, you get benefits, and you get socialized in working with other people. And that gives you a platform to go on from there.

So I think it's really a matter, too, of people just asking themselves wherever they're working, is there something either that I can do as an individual or is there something that my company can bring to this, not just necessarily in inventing something, but literally opening its doors in a new way to bringing people in. I think that it's very important for people to understand that Syria is really much, much beyond a political problem at this point. It's really a collective

humanity issue. And the way that we will deal with this crisis, this ongoing crisis, and not just the refugees, the actual conflict itself really will define all of us in history. It's a responsibility. It's not something you can just sit out. No, it's not. I want to thank you for being here today to talk about this. I'm sure it's not easy given all of us. all the things that you've witnessed firsthand. And that's going on for you guys to talk about it in this context. But we really appreciate your taking the time and the work that you do. Thank you for joining the A6 and Z podcast.

Thank you.