Translator: Maurizio Berti Reviewer: Elena Montrasio
Do you think innovation will help in the empowerment of refugees?
To answer this question,
I will delve into the very delicate topic of citizenship and community.
Personally, I have never had citizenship,
as I belong to the third generation of a displaced community
from Palestine to Syria.
Refugees who lost, by default, a package of human rights,
a barrier which forces us always to think outside boundaries.
I was born in Damascus, Syria, and I enjoyed living the privileges
of having entrepreneurial parents, growing up in a thriving environment.
Even though I was born as a refugee, in Syria,
I've lived a fairly luxurious lifestyle,
and some of my friends joked that I was an aristocratic refugee.
I moved to Europe in 2010 and I earned a Master's in Business Administration,
run between Budapest and New York City.
During my study,
I was seeking to breathe again
the air of the Jasmine city, Damascus.
But the situation erupted,
and made the whole area insecure,
and made my desire to go back seem as if I was in denial
of the fact that there is war at home.
I realized I had to stay abroad longer,
waiting for new Jasmine to bloom again in Damascus.
As I did not grow up in Europe,
I always thought I would be staying here shortly,
and I felt trapped
the moment I tried to belong to a system that does not recognize me,
my documents, or my history.
Difficulties emerged in every office I entered.
Clerks, sometimes, have to choose for me a citizenship from a list,
to push papers.
It does not matter where;
in the hospital, university, airports, usually I smile
when I see the way clerks are staring at my documents.
Once a lady told me,
"You cannot marry here, because we do not recognize your state."
I realized that I have to do a lot more to get what is usually taken for granted.
I have to invent my way out, I have to create my own opportunities.
But having a degree in Physics, and another in Business Administration
opened the way for me to work in the commercialization of technology.
I stepped into the entrepreneurial and innovation scene,
and I emphasize the added value
of having a diverse know-how and culture.
In this way I discovered the open world of innovation;
a world, a space with less prejudice.
Failure was as present as success.
Many times I have to maneuver around discrimination, racism, and bureaucracy.
But working together with innovators from Italy,
Hungary, and many other destinations,
made me feel like I belong to this state,
the state of innovation, of challenging the status quo.
I enjoyed working in an open and dynamic environment
based on the integration of science, business, technology, design,
to create new outcomes, new solutions.
In the meanwhile,
the war at home, in the last five years,
has taken from my happiness.
But never from hope,
because I am determined
to create a positive wave impact from here
all the way to the other side of the Mediterranean, where I came from.
When the refugees crisis, the so-called refugee crisis in Europe emerged,
I took initiative, I started a campaign with an enlightened team,
trying to involve refugees and immigrants
in the innovative entrepreneurial cycle, in Italy.
And why not?
If entrepreneurs and innovators usually challenge the status quo,
exactly like refugees,
they'll have the key role in involving refugees in the economic cycle.
In this way we had a vision that, enabling refugees
to start their own activities in a co-working ecosystem,
will create opportunities.
So refugees can be potential partners,
and resources of economic change, instead of loading the economy.
We imagine that working side to side with refugees
will create and will help in crafting tools to utilize the inflow of experience,
a diverse experience,
of engineers, physicians, programmers, and makers,
and involve them in a new, creative way, with Italians.
An example of what we're trying to do in Italy, from Germany:
in Berlin, entrepreneurs from Peace Innovation Lab,
have launched a school for coding for refugees
and they tried to employ them in the labor market.
Another example from the Netherlands,
where the refugees' incubator
is giving refugees the needed knowledge and financial support
to start their own activities.
From Silicon Valley,
where "Reboot Kamp" is a project
taking place for teaching refugees' children coding skills.
And how can we make this happen also in Italy?
Opening co-working spaces, the local co-working spaces,
opening the local incubators, and accelerators,
and allow the inflow of this diverse knowledge.
Supporting startups that involve immigrants,
and merge them in the social economic tissue of our society.
One could argue that a company founded by a refugee
will lack the interaction with the local territory,
and will fail.
Yes, I agree.
Because we need to work together, refugees and local citizens,
adding up geographical and cultural dimensions,
to reach to new horizons.
In this way only,
entrepreneurship with refugees will be a win-win strategy.
Imagine,
if you have to pass a life without having a citizenship,
if you left a life beyond the sea,
how can you create a new life?
How can you create a new home and replace a lost one?
To survive, people invent their ways,
and when there is nothing to lose, they will find the only way to succeed.
For that, being a survivor, an immigrant, or a refugee,
implies having the entrepreneurial spirit,
where risk-taking and resistance are the only ways,
the only options:
breaking down walls and creating new opportunities from barriers.
For me, when it's very difficult, when I feel like just giving up,
I continue to try to resist,
because what I'm trying to do
is not just for me, it is the work of a team
that does not exist anymore.
For a generation of youth, who are under siege, or fire,
scattered in the world, or in the sky,
let me ask you today to think of this:
Next time, when you meet a foreigner in your town,
don't ask him, "Where are you from?"
Try to ask him,
"What do you want to do here?
What do you want to create with us?"
Thank you.
(Applause)