What do you get when you combine geeks from Gaza, tech startup wizards from Seattle, app nerds from Google, economic development wonks from Mercy Corps and a little seed funding from generous donors? The first ever Startup Weekend in Gaza. Watch the video and get nerdy.

What they're saying at the Gaza Startup Weekend:

The one common thing that I think unites everyone here is that they really, really see a lot of opportunity here to kind of prove that even in Gaza... people are really skilled, really passionate, really powerful.

- Adam Stelle, Chief Operating Officer, Startup Weekend

We have a very, very high percentage of developers and designers and technical people, which is really great. So there’s a strong product focus here and there’s that technical talent to back it up.

- Adam Stelle, Chief Operating Officer, Startup Weekend

I’m meeting new people, new business people, new technical people. Different knowledge, people who use different techniques.

- Alaa Hamouda, Startup Weekend participant

This program, it’s part of the economic development that we are trying to create in Gaza, so that we can engage youth to find better jobs and more income and better opportunities.

- Reem Omran, Senior Youth Development Officer, Mercy Corps

I need your support. I need you to be side-by-side with me to achieve what we are dreaming of.

- Mira Bakri, participant

Get involved as a mentor, trainer or investor: arabtech@sea.mercycorps.org

RELATED CONTENT:Google and Mercy Corps Help Palestinian Youth Reach Technological Promised Land

Local publishing can increase readership and boost economies. Photo: Pratham Books (Flickr)

Between the pages of a book, people in developing countries can find knowledge and business opportunity.

Our recent post on homemade books highlighted the issue of literacy and the shortage of reading material for children in developing countries. However, this issue extends beyond schools to affect entire communities. Many have weighed in on the apparent lack of a reading culture in places such as sub-Saharan Africa, but few have discussed two large issues: donors and publishers.

While donors mean well, literary contributions are often in a different language or deemed culturally irrelevant. The donor feels warm and fuzzy, but the recipient may now be stuck with a big, unusable pile of books.

There are two solutions: one is external to the market, the other internal.

The first involves a little extra research and outreach on the part of the donor. What books would they like to read? What books are culturally relevant while still introducing new ideas and cross-cultural learning? What textbooks would best fit the local curriculum? Whether lining school shelves or introducing a great work of fiction, these questions emphasize the importance of reader input and community context. Make sure the charitable organization you use is able to answer these questions.

The second solution segues into the second issue: Publishers. Specifically, the developing world's lack thereof.

We know there is a severe deficiency of books in local dialects throughout the developing world. But this is where need turns to opportunity. The market is ripe for local (or even multinational) book publishers. By translating and promoting local authors, countries can begin boosting literacy and readership. A nice byproduct is a bump to the job and manufacturing market, trickling down to the local economy. Though the latter may be small, the long-term effect is increased literacy and education.

There are already a few organizations that have heeded this call. The Room to Read organization has begun publishing in 27 local dialects throughout Africa and Asia. The United Kingdom’s Big Give project is currently seeking donations to run a similar program. While these organizations are a great start, there’s still a lot of opportunity.

Thus, with a little extra research we can avoid dumping unwanted items on poorer communities. By supporting publishing efforts, we help to address the root of the problem. Not only does this boost the local economy but it helps in the fight against illiteracy. It’s a win-win.

The next great author could be waiting.

Photo: Will Weathersby/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps and Google.org are linking up to change the Gaza Strip and West Bank, one peaceful IT solution at a time.

Thanks to the Arab Developer Network Initiative (ADNI), young Palestinians will have the opportunity to develop web-based technological skills, sparking a new generation of capable, creative entrepreneurs. With the help of training sessions from Google and Mercy Corps’ seasoned experts, and additional funding from Source of Hope, ADNI is expected to open up a new professional field for Palestine’s motivated, young, job-seeking graduates.

The Challenge: For many Palestinian youth these days, unemployment is standard—the majority are jobless, despite relatively high educations. This youth bulge, created by a large baby boom in the 1980s, has ballooned during a global economic lull and left thousands of skilled 20- and 30-somethings without work. The unemployment rate for youth between 20-24 years is 66 percent in Gaza and 34 percent in the West Bank. It’s a terrible time to be young and in need of a job in the Middle East.

Palestine’s tech sector is so far not keeping up with forward-thinking tech innovations, such as cloud computing and app software. Currently, the sector represents a small niche, accounting for only five percent of the Palestinian economy. The lack of harmony between technological innovation and economic development is compounded by the alarming fact that about one percent of online content is available in Arabic.

The Opportunity: With a $900,000 grant provided by Google.org (the philanthropic branch of Google) for the first two years, and an additional $1 million provided by the Source of Hope Foundation, ADNI will have a healthy nest egg to start developing its program. The initiative includes three major components: technological and business-specific training, local and international mentorships, and seed capital investments.

What are they coming up with? Ideas already proposed by Palestinian ADNI participants include an app that turns off when entering a mosque, hand gesture recognition software, and Gaza Places, the Palestinian version of Google Maps. Mercy Corps and Google hope that investing in ambitious, fertile minds will, in turn, create dynamic innovations with social impact and the potential to produce income.

Photo: Mohammed El Baba for Mercy Corps

The Obstacles: Mobility and location flexibility is a well-known headache for the territorially-conscious region. However, an Internet connection allows people to work anywhere and cloud computing has changed the way we think about physical IT resources and traditional bumps in the road to developing apps. The initiative sets up a win-win situation: Palestinians receive the toolkit they need to supply an unfulfilled demand, while Google expands its interests in the Arabic-speaking market, which is ripe for paid online advertisements.

While the results of this project appear promising, ADNI still has many valleys to cross before reaching the promised land. No 3G network currently exists in the region for wireless devices. Commercial goods and materials cost a pretty penny, approximately 50 percent more than outside the borders. PayPal is not available to most. In Palestine, the platforms the global tech sector is built on simply aren't in place.

The Hope: In spite of these inconveniences, both Mercy Corps and Google are optimistic about their joint venture. “Palestinians have such a unique position," says Gisel Kordestani, Google's director of new business development. "They're well educated. They have strong English-language skills. With 88 million people in the [Middle East and North African] region getting online, they have the opportunity to build something for the Arab world."

And so Google.org, Mercy Corps and Source of Hope seem to be abiding by a proverb from one of the most notable male figures from Nazareth, who once preached: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.”

Get involved as a mentor, trainer or investor: arabtech@sea.mercycorps.org

RELATED CONTENT:What They're Saying at Startup Weekend in Gaza

Sharon Chang, left, is the founder of an intitiative to become a talent agency for social innovators. Photo: bryanesque (Flickr)

It's an unlikely romance, fit for Hollywood: social change meets corporate marketing. Now, one of Tinseltown's most successful inventions is about to join the cast.

Enter the first social-entrepreneurship talent agent.

Meet Sharon Chang, founder of Yoxi.tv. The former chief creative director of 19 Entertainment, the company that produces American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, Chang has jumped into nonprofit entrepreneurship with a totally original business model.

Yoxi, her startup, is a pro bono talent development agency for "social innovation rockstars" … sponsored by corporations looking to market themselves as do-gooders … that happens to be shooting its own "reality" show … in Liberia.

It's so complicated it just might work. A company like IBM, for example, might ask to sponsor a social innovator working on putting "big data" to use in the education sector. Yoxi might sift through their roster of promising entrepreneurs and suggest Heather Hiles of Rrripple, whose project is aligned with IBM’s brand interests. Yoxi would then use its media savvy to help Hiles and her ideas hit the big time—with IBM attaching its brand to reap marketing benefits and tap fresh ideas.

Last month, Chang explained to a Forbes columnist that she'd once toyed with a more conventional TV show along these lines, presumably an Apprentice-like contest for social innovators. But she concluded that the for-profit mass media model wasn't right for her mission:

I wanted to find fresh approaches to distribution. ...Even when you have a powerful story, it’s difficult to find an equally powerful channel. I don’t think employing celebrities should be the default and/or the only answer.

Yoxi's answer, at least for now, is to design a rigorous selection process for "social innovation rockstars"—their word for the sort of ambassadors who can catch the imagination of the public and push new ideas into the mainstream. People with great ideas and the charisma to match. Here's Yoxi spokeswoman Kasia Reterska, in an email to Global Envision:

Selection of SIRs [social innovation rockstars] happens via our research process where we rate about 14 metrics around a social entrepreneur. We measure typical attributes like the success of their organization, etc., but also focus on things like a person's charisma and media savvy. Like the notion of casting a TV show or play, we feel it's essential to find entrepreneurs who, along with a great idea, are passionate and effective communicators. These are the people who will stand out in the crowd and expedite their work in the social innovation space.

Brands can sponsor specific Rockstars. … We're just as focused on finding SIRs to help a brand via shared-value ideals as we are to harness influencers around a specific topic/entrepreneur.

In other words, Yoxi's goal is to recruit, package and promote a stable of fresh-faced innovators with useful ideas, then match each with a corporation that'd fund it in exchange for the marketing benefits. If it works, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

David Roodman strikes a balance in “Think Again: Microfinance,” a new article out this week in Foreign Policy. He gets to the bottom of five microcredit myths, which come from both supporters and detractors of microfinance.

An oil pipeline to Canada's untapped Tar Sands deposits would create short-term construction jobs, but its effects on the climate could permanently destroy jobs elsewhere. Photo: rickz (Flickr)

Proponents of the proposed pipeline from Canada’s Athabasca Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico claim that its construction would create jobs. But while the long-term employment prospects are debatable at best, the resulting long-term economic devastation is far more certain.

The recent decision by the Obama administration to deny a permit for the construction of the pipeline has received much press and been touted as a victory for environmentalists. But as climate activist Bill McKibben and his organization point out, stopping the extraction of the tar sands would be a victory for those far removed from the American environmental movement as well.

McKibben said in an interview with Green Prophet that “Any place that is already living close to the margins is in the greatest danger” when facing climate change.

This means the world’s poorest, already suffering from food shortages and decreased agricultural production, would be hardest hit by this carbon bomb. And scientific consensus backs up McKibben’s view.

Country Ranks, Estimated Percentage of Agricultural Productivity Loss by 2080: Potential Carbon Emissions from Canadian Oil Sands. Photo: Center for Global Development

David Wheeler, senior fellow emeritus of the Center for Global Development, compiled a recent study specifically tying the exploitation of the Canadian oil sands to increased agricultural losses.

Wheeler concluded that “full exploitation of Canada’s oil sands deposit would impose significant agricultural productivity losses on over 3 billion people in the developing world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.” He calculates that “combustion of the Alberta deposit would increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 by 99 ppm, or 21.3 percent of the increase already projected to occur by 2100.”

Or, as reputed climate scientist Jim Hansen of NASA put it, tapping the tar sands would be “essentially game over for the climate."

Wheeler's findings show a "game over" scenario in poor rural regions, in particular, predicting agricultural productivity losses of up to nearly 13 percent in Africa and 9 percent in Asia. Wheeler, who also created a ‘Climate Vulnerability Index’ by country, sums up his findings powerfully and succinctly, stating "Put simply, the potential destructive power in Canada’s oil sands exceeds anything modern civilization has witnessed to date."

“This new report puts into stark relief exactly what ‘game over’ looks like: Millions upon millions of starving people across the planet," says 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn.

On the ground, countries projected by Wheeler to see further damaging impacts are already struggling with agricultural losses. Another 350.org co-founder, Phil Aroneanu, told Global Envision that “we have a plethora of anecdotal and story-based thoughts from our organizers around the world” of agricultural devastation and food shortages linked to changing climate patterns.

Drought-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and Sudan, among others, provide some of the most poignant images of climate-related suffering. An Oxfam International report points out that 85 percent of Ethiopians depend directly on agriculture. And as a local farmer told Oxfam, “The rain doesn’t come on time anymore. After we plant, the rain stops just as our crops start to grow. And it begins to rain after the crops have already been ruined.”

And with the projections from scientists like Hansen and Wheeler, Africa’s farmers and communities appear unlikely to recover soon.

While McKibben writes that “Blocking one pipeline was never going to stop global warming,” and Obama’s denial of the Keystone permit may well not kill the project in the long run, the scientific and anecdotal evidence is clear: Vulnerable populations are suffering at the hands of carbon kings already, and tapping the tar sands will exacerbate their problems.

So the Keystone proposal may or may not be dead. But the political discourse around potential job-killing has mostly left out an important aspect: the killing of crops and livelihoods elsewhere in the world.

McKibben has said that extracting Canada’s tar sands would mean lighting the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” For now, at least, that fuse remains unlit.

Women in Kenya drag jerry cans of water 4 kilometers through a parched landscape. Photo by Erin Gray/Mercy Corps.

How bad is the drought and famine in East Africa? Climate scientist Simon Mason elaborates in this video interview. Comparing East Africa’s situation to other drought situations, Mason highlights the dramatic impacts in a region receiving 5 to 25% of its usual expected rainfall.

With the world facing more and more severe climate-related disruptions, Mason explains some ways in which weather forecasting is being used to help humanitarian aid organizations prepare responses in the short and long term. Check out his interview here.

David Roodman is creating a stir in the world of microfinance with his new book, Due Diligence, which concludes that microfinance’s average impact on the poverty level of clients is zero.

He shared the writing process for the book on his “Microfinance Open Book Blog,” where he continues to post updates. Check it out.

With mobile money, Haitians are able to complete transactions like this one wirelessly. Photo: Karl Grobl for NetAid.

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.

In Haiti, cash is escaping from wallets and savings accounts are breaking free from brick-and-mortar banks.

Two years after 2010’s devastating earthquake, mobile money has taken off in the island nation. While the country has seen setbacks in many areas and continues to struggle, one bright spot is the transformation of the country’s traditional banking sector. Physical banks were wiped away by the quake and subsequent hurricane, and a mobile banking network that uses cell phones has grown up in their place.

Toting your money around on a cell phone might sound scary, but for many Haitians it’s more secure than carrying around a wallet, which isn’t protected by a PIN. The handy infographic to the right shows how a mobile money transaction works.

How a mobile wallet transaction takes place in Haiti. Infographic courtesy Mercy Corps.

In the months following the quake, both Mercy Corps (our parent organization) and The Gates Foundation sponsored separate Haitian cell phone companies, Voilà and Digicel, to help mobile money take off, with the Gates Foundation offering monetary incentives for the first company to get a program off the ground and for continued improvements in order to get entrepreneurial engines revving.

For many Haitians, mobile money can open a door to personal choice. Mercy Corps has used mobile money to distribute food aid to families across Haiti and deliver payments from its cash-for-work programs. Instead of spending hours waiting in line for a cash payment or a food ration, Haitians receive a wireless money transfer on their phones once a month.

The technology holds promises for the future, too. Long-term, mobile money could be expanded so that it’s accessible to everyone for all of their personal purchases. Haitians could use mobile money to send remittances to family members in other parts of the country, according to AudienceScapes. And after visiting with Mercy Corps staff in Haiti in 2010, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about the way that mobile money is creating a way for the poor to save money like never before. Most banks won’t accept very small deposits, but now a mobile phone could double as a savings account. It could blow the microsavings sector wide open.

Mobile money could also help make Haitians healthier. Even before the earthquake hit, Haiti’s public health indicators were the worst in the Western hemisphere, according to the U.S. Department of State, and those problems were only compounded by the disaster. In Kenya, one of the first countries to adopt mobile money, customers can use it to pay - and save up for - health services. Expectant mothers use it to save for health care, and in rural communities Kenyans have used the service to pay for access to clean water, reports USAID. Looking forward, a mash-up of mobile health and mobile money technologies in Haiti could lead to new insurance plans and health voucher programs, according to Health Unbound.

With mobile money quickly gaining widespread use, the developing world is leaps ahead of the developed. Mobile money launched in Kenya in 2003, according to The National Archives, but Google Wallet’s similar service in the U.S. wasn’t released until September of last year and has yet to truly take off. Maybe it’s time for American company executives to start taking a few pointers from Haiti.

Mercy Corps made cutting down trees for cooking fuel more sustainable through a reforestation project in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Photo: JGrant for Mercy Corps.

A new program in Brazil is turning tragedy on its head by paying the poor to preserve their natural surroundings.

Resource depletion and environmental degradation are common echoes of poverty. Desperate to get by, many rural poor turn to the only income source around: the natural environment.

That's why Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff outlined a new program called Bolsa Verde (green allowance) to promote environmental protection and decrease deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, according to mongabay.com. The program will provide BR $300 (US $180 US) every three months to extremely impoverished families living in national forests and sustainable reserves. Recipient families must currently have monthly incomes of less than BR $70 (US $40) to qualify.

In exchange, residents pledge not to deforest illegally or to poach timber. It’s a huge jump in income for the poor, and in one of the world’s most rapidly growing economies, it's a small price for the public to pay.

“Incentive is important because we assign an economic value to nature. It's as if it were compensation for conservation," said Manuel Cunha, president of the National Council of Extractive Populations of Amazonia.

The program is modeled after Brazil’s existing and widely respected Bolsa Familia (family allowance) program, which has helped reduce poverty and inequality over the past several decades, according to The Economist.

Bolsa Verde seeks to expand these successes, reducing the strain of poverty on ecosystem services as well. And when the environment is protected, the poor lead better, healthier lives. So Brazil plans to increase people’s income so they take better care of their environment and themselves.

The government, however, isn’t trying to stop resource consumption that people depend on. "It is an incentive to have sustainable use of natural resources. [Residents] have the right to use biodiversity, but in a sustainable manner," Roberto Vizentin, Secretary of Sustainable Rural Development of the MMA, told Globo News.

If effective, this could mean both improved financial livelihoods and reduced vulnerability for Amazonian residents. And the environment and the rest of the world get something from the deal as well.

Children fill school libraries with their own stories. Photo: United Nations Photo (Flickr)

Developing countries face overcrowded classrooms and empty libraries. Students have started addressing this issue by filling shelves with their own stories.

Many children in developing countries do not have books to take home or read in class. If they do, they’re usually not translated into local dialects. This means limited use by parents at home, many of whom are also illiterate. UNESCO reported in 2010 that one in five adults is illiterate. Not only learning to read but having easy access to books and other printed material is imperative to improve this staggering statistic.

While some rural communities have access to e-readers, they're few and far between. This is where innovation and imagination come in. A primary school in Chingoe, Mozambique, is filling its library with homemade books, shaping young readers by allowing them to share their own stories. The Literacy Boost program by Save the Children applies this hands-on method and has seen results. Teachers write their own short stories, children draw illustrations that serve as writing exercises, or parents tell stories to their children for transcription. Add a little string for binding and you’re set. It's an innovative way to promote and combine oral traditions with basic education.

Writing can also help children cope after disasters or hardships. Drawing or writing out their experiences is a constructive way to process emotions. Sharing these stories with their peers helps in the recovery effort while simultaneously improving important written and verbal communication skills.

While some may not ascribe a homemade library the same prestige of traditional textbooks or literature, it provides an important foundation where needed most. Children are able to read at home, engage their family and community, and boost their learning skills. No matter who wrote it, taking a book home to read is the first step in realizing the magic of education.

Oliberté manufactures shoes in the same areas where TOMS gives them away for free. Photo: Luke Robinson (Flickr)

Last month, I called TOMS's "One for One" model a great marketing tool, but bad aid. Oliberté, a new footwear company being labeled the anti-TOMS, is proving that what Africa needs is fair jobs—not endless dependence on handouts.

Oliberté is creating buzz for its commitment to fair labor practices and for the quality of its product. Tal Dehtiar, the Canadian founder of Oliberté, had experience in aid work before starting the company. He’s committed to creating jobs in Africa at a time when other manufacturers continue to be discouraged by the negative stereotypes of the region. So far, Oliberté operates in Ethiopia, Kenya and Liberia; there are plans to expand to Camaroon, Congo, Uganda and Zambia.

In a GOOD magazine feature, Dehtiar explains the difference between Oliberté and TOMS—he believes that with TOMS' handouts to Africa, there is no incentive for dependencies to end. "He’s skeptical of the company's one-for-one model because he believes the donations can pressure local shoemakers and vendors, in addition to reinforcing stereotypes about the developing world," writes Tate Wakins in GOOD.

The Oliberté model is fundamentally different than TOMS's. It’s selling pride, not pity.

Village savings and loan schemes help the poor save in remote communities like this one in Malawi. Photo: Erik Mandell for MercyCorps

The world's poorest have long struggled to borrow. Now, an alternative microfinance model is also making it easier for poor people to save.

Microfinance institutions have provided lending services to millions of the world’s poor people for several decades. But loans must be paid back, and even traditional microlenders are hesitant to lend money to the poorest of the poor—including those living in some of the most remote and unpopulated communities. That’s where the model of village savings and loans associations (VSLAs) comes in, according to a recent Economist article.

The idea is simple: savings, rather than just borrowed money, is key to helping poor people become more stable and less vulnerable. Differing from the better-known Grameen Bank model of microfinance, which provides individual or group loans and operates on credit, a village savings and loan scheme allows a group of community members to pool their savings, lend within the group, and save the interest earned from the loans to disperse to members individually or use for community projects.

This model enables both borrowing capabilities and longer-term savings accumulation for both the group and its members.

CARE International, a humanitarian aid organization focused on fighting poverty, engineered the VSLA model in Niger in 1991. Today, CARE oversees village savings and loan associations in Ghana, Malawi and Uganda. Numerous other non-governmental organizations have promoted village savings groups that serve more than 4.6 million members in 54 countries.

While nonprofits promote the model, the groups themselves are internally managed. Unlike solely credit-based models, group members do not owe repayment to an external bank, but rather to their own pool. Group constitutions are established by members, outlining rules, interest rates, and how savings and interest will be shared. Sometimes transactions, debts and credits are written in basic ledgers, but some groups with no literate members rely on memorization, familiar to those with a culture of oral history, according to Hugh Allen, founder of VSL Associates.

Amid criticism of the effectiveness of traditional microfinance models, as we reported a few months ago, VSLA schemes offer a different path to poverty alleviation.

And for some of the world’s poorest, savings—not a loan— is the golden ticket needed for a better life.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

The departure of skilled workers in the developing world may, contrary to popular belief, do more good than harm. Photo:banoiff (flickr)

When educated professionals depart a developing nation, does greater wealth arrive? Some scholars in the international development community are saying farewell to the notion that the ‘brain drain’ hinders impoverished countries from expanding human capital and increasing the growth rate.

Exit brain drain. Enter brain gain.

The brain drain has long been perceived as a constraint on the progress of developing nations—much-needed doctors, professors, and scientists often abandon their homelands in exchange for better salaries and more comfortable lives in the developed world. However, research indicates that if countries can hit a sweet spot of sending around 20 percent of their talent to other countries, the residual impact of those individual losses will actually spur economic and educational growth at home.

But how? One way is through remittances, cash transfers from an individual in one country to another elsewhere. Take Ghana, for example. Some figures place remittance levels at $400 million per year, on par with the country's two biggest exports, cocoa and gold, which account for 25 percent of the foreign exchange earnings of the nation. To put this figure in perspective, in previous years Ghana has received around $650 million in foreign aid. Compared to other developing nations, that's low—in some, “remittances are more than double the amount of foreign aid,” as reported by Foreign Policy.

Furthermore, remittances can withstand the tests of natural disasters, and political and economic crises. Chances are an economic and political collapse in Egypt would deter foreign investment but encourage a migrant to increase his or her monetary givings to Egyptian relatives. Now those are derivatives Fannie and Freddie should have bet on.

Much of the new economic activity happening in African countries like Ghana are catalyzed by residents who have traveled or lived in developed countries. New York University professor William Easterly refers to this as “brain circulation,” that is, the movement of ideas and investments from educated professionals between their homes and the West.

Often, brain drainers will eventually return to their country of origin or maintain residency both abroad and at home. Not only do these individuals in turn support the economic development of their hometowns, but they also inspire members of the community to invest in education. According to Easterly, most students are motivated by the idea of living abroad, noting that “if this prospect is closed tightly, this may have an effect on the effort levels of students in the system, and therefore the quality of the graduates of the school system.”

Additionally, travel expands capital horizons. Robert Guest notes in Foreign Policy that “countries trade more with countries from which they have received immigrants.” A migrant living in the UK might inform his sister in Somalia that there is demand in his city for a specific talent she may have the skill sets to provide. Diaspora thus encourages a fluidity of ideas, innovations, and supplies and demands between often disconnected parts of the world.

Investing money abroad can be the best way to bring more of it home. Brainpower may work that way, too.