[Crowd Leader: Ville Miettinen] Crowdsourcing: Developing World Class Service

How do you turn a developing economy into a developed one? Until recently, economists (who everyone knows are never wrong) had one answer: industrialization.

The theory is that all societies develop via the same stages: first agriculture, then manufacturing, and finally services. Basically, it’s just like the classic strategy game Civilization. You start off with one guy, a hut, and a shovel, progress to dirty-but-productive industrial sprawl, and finally emerge into a gleaming, high-tech future (or if you’re unlucky, a nuclear/ alien apocalypse).

Recently however, some countries (most famously India) seem to be skipping the middle stage: going straight from agriculture to services. So are we on the brink of a brave new post-industrial future? And might crowdsourced labor have a unique role to play in sustaining the services revolution?

Mind the labor gap

As anyone who’s called a computer helpline in the last 10 years will know, outsourcing is big business in India. The industry is worth over $70 billion a year with high-tech services like IT, communications, and banking growing fastest. Outside India, tech-savvy African countries like Kenya and Rwanda are also keen to jump on the services bandwagon.

To cut a complex economic theory short, call centres are cheaper than factories. They’re also cleaner, greener, and more likely to employ women. But not everyone is convinced by the “services miracle”. Some argue that the service sector alone can’t create enough “low-skilled” jobs to pull whole populations out of poverty. As an article in The Economist eloquently (if depressingly) put it: “modern services require skilled workers, not the unskilled type that poor countries have in abundance.”

Crowdsourcing with a smile

So, could crowdsourced labor help to fill the jobs gap? Crowdsourcing tasks usually require less skill than traditional outsourcing. Outsourcing jobs often mean long-hours, intensive training, and working far away from home. Crowdsourced work is much more flexible: anyone can do it anywhere. In Africa for example, non-profit organization Samasource runs projects to “give” crowdsourced work to some of the world’s most disadvantaged communities: refugees who complete tasks using old PCs and simple mobile phones. If they can do it, surely anyone can.

So that’s the good news. The bad news is that crowdsourcing in the developing world faces (at least) two massive challenges: First there’s the chronic lack of infrastructure, computers and internet access. As we discussed in a recent blog post, the phrase “reliable internet connection” is still a contradiction in terms for many Africans. Secondly there’s education and training – how do you explain to a goat-herder in Mali what the hell Mechanical Turk even is, let alone how it works?

There are some glimmers of hope. In East Africa, developers have started to design text-based apps customized for simple mobiles. There’s even an app called M-Farm which provides farmers with up-to-date info on crop and produce prices (suggesting that maybe we’ve underestimated the IT skills of goat-herders). In India, some outsourcing companies are now successfully recruiting lower-skilled rural workers for simple jobs like data-entry and form filling. Given the chance, people in poor communities are willing and able to embrace new technology and skills.

To a family living on $1 a day, any extra source of income makes a huge difference. Earning $2 or $3 a week from crowdsourcing could mean your kids get to stay in school, another field gets planted, or just that everyone can eat 3 meals a day. Development is a long, slow, tough road. With investment, commitment, and vision, maybe crowdsourced labor could help countries get a few steps further.