Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Gözde Alpçetin
I was born in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast.
But to be honest,
I can't remember what Africa looks like.
For the simple reason that, when I was a kid,
I was taken and brought somewhere else.
Growing between United States and Europe doesn't mean living a healthy environment.
My biological father was an African father,
with that, back in the days: African mentality.
According to him, he was the boss
and we, the kids, had just to follow his rules.
Simple as it was.
I knew I was good enough to do something extraordinary later in my life,
but at that time I was not allowed
to follow the passion I had for several things,
especially sports and computer science.
My desire was to live in one environment
where all individuals could freely aspire and achieve their dreams,
according to their abilities and perseverance.
That's why I thought that
leaving my parents’ house and moving somewhere else
would be the only way to truly achieve better life prospects.
That single day in which I left my parents' house,
I felt like my period of jail was finally over,
and my life as a free man was about to start.
Living without economic resources
forced me to develop the ability to do more with less,
and I learned how to turn adversity into an opportunity.
I was broke.
But, despite the challenges, I worked hard to go to university.
I chose international rights and diplomacy
without any clear idea of how the academic path
would turn to be helpful later in my professional career.
During university, I fell in love with macroeconomics and geopolitics.
So, after my graduation,
I applied to go to work for one of the biggest banks ever,
and for the most interesting country of the world:
the European Union.
In 2010,
I started working for a private agency of the European Union.
And my job was the monitoring of several factors
to anticipate through data collection and analysis
the potential movement of individuals
leaving their country of origin
towards the external borders of the European Union.
In the same year, 2010, we had the so-called “Arab Spring”.
And since then,
the immigration has become the megatrend of our time.
Since then,
the debate focuses too much
on the distinction between refugees and economic immigrants.
Forgetting that, globally,
immigrants represent approximately three percent of the world population,
but produce more than nine percent of the global GDP.
The debate can't see
that immigration is not just inevitable, but it is necessary.
The contribution of immigrants can be seen in every aspect of our life.
We see it in religion, in politics, in business, in arts, in education.
Even in athletics and entertainment.
There is no part of our nations
that has not been touched and shaped by our immigrant background.
And we got to recognize
that the energy that immigrants bring to host communities
is a key reason why the American economy
has been the greatest engine of prosperity and innovation in history.
Without the opportunity for his biological parents
to leave their country of origin and build better life prospects,
in a country they deserved to call home,
Steve Jobs would never be able to deliver us the iPhone,
as we know it today.
Without the opportunity to leave their country of origin
and build better life prospects in a country they deserved to call home,
Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai would never be able
to deliver us Google as we know it today.
I know, some of you are going to tell me
that stories of immigrants can be positive and negative.
And it's true.
But we cannot pretend to understand immigration
without hearing all of them.
Individuals that leave their comfort zone and choose the journey to the unknown
are necessarily equipped
with drive, creativity, determination
and just plain guts.
But too often they are distrusted
by the country of arrival in host communities.
And you can feel it.
There is this anti-immigrant sentiment
that is spreading everywhere around the world.
So the world, not just Europe,
urgently needs better tools to manage international immigration.
Well-managed immigration, in the third millennium,
builds on reliable data and evidence.
But too often data is seen
as the abstract business of technical experts,
operating in backrooms.
Yet, data is more than numbers.
It is essential to defy challenges, design responses
and monitor the implementation of immigration policies.
Thereby,
data enables us to manage for better immigration outcomes,
skills recognition,
fill the labor market shortage in a targeted way,
speed up asylum system and increase net remittance flow.
Large benefit accrues to country of origin and destination,
when immigration is managed well.
Mismanaged immigration, on the other hand,
puts migrants at risk
and paves the way for this anti-immigrant sentiment,
that is spreading everywhere, especially in Europe.
In Europe, immigration divides communities,
while the motto of the European Union
is “Unity in Diversity”.
According to data,
to achieve greater competitiveness, European Union needs all its talents.
And guess what?
Immigrants represent a potential also for the creation of new jobs.
More than seven percent of self-employed in European Union
were born outside their country of residence,
which is more than two million people.
Of theirs, 47 percent were born outside the European Union.
It is time to wake up, people.
It is time to take our responsibility
and give an answer to 258 million people
estimated to be residing outside their country of origin.
It is time to turn immigration into a huge opportunity,
not just for immigrants, but especially for host communities.
All of you are going to ask me, Yes, nice, so how are we going to do that?
My answer is simple: four steps.
One, do a preliminary screening of skills, background and aspiration
of all immigrants, especially newly arrived.
Two, train all immigrants with a good balance
between a theoretical approach, based on information and knowledge,
and a practical approach, based on direct experience.
Three, analyze collected data to ease the matching
between most skills identified
and career placement available on the market.
Four, ease the access to deserving immigrants
with fundamental tools they need to achieve an economic independence.
So, tonight I'm going to share with you the most extraordinary part of my life.
In 2017, I had the privilege to become the founder of MyGrants.
MyGrants is the first app based on microlearning
especially designed to deliver support to immigrants
through a series of thematic modern quizzes.
The quiz provides immigrants all information and training needed
to build consciousness, new skills and renewed credibility.
To assess the background,
we assume that trainees initially begin with no prior knowledge.
Through MyGrants, they can learn simple concepts like,
How many stars are there on the European flag?
Eight, twelve or fifteen?
Things they need to know like,
What is the first step of the asylum system?
And things that could be interesting like,
How many startup accelerators are in place across Africa?
Trainees read the question,
and choose the option of answer they think to be the correct one.
They collect a single point for each correct answer.
And even if the answer selected is wrong,
the app is providing a formative feedback to guide self-reflection.
The assessment of background is fundamental
in order to identify skills
that immigrants may have acquired, formally or informally,
during their previous life.
The training program, always based on microlearning,
uses the power of technology
making lifelong learning available for free to all immigrants.
Adaptive training gave us the opportunity to personalize the training program
according to their areas of strengths, weaknesses and interests.
Trainees can choose among three main destinations:
higher location, job placement and entrepreneurship.
Modern quiz attempt and repeated,
collected points, percentage of correct answers
and average time to finish each single module
are among the main evidence used
to generate the monthly report of performance for each single trainee.
Data mining and machine learning give us the opportunity
to track if and when trainees reach
from beginners, competent, proficient or expert level of mastery
in one or more topics.
MyGrants' unique value
is the huge database of competences and skills
of over 44.000 immigrants,
where skills are empowered and validated
according to local, regional and national occupational needs.
Through database, MyGrants is offering
a new and simple hiring process for smart businesses.
Companies have the opportunity
to pick in real time or track the performance
to program the hiring of the most suited, talented immigrant,
according to the role they require.
In 2018, we matched over 920 talents
with private companies seeking individuals
with the right skills they need to grow and innovate.
But we realized that up to 90% of talents with a job contract in their hand,
did not show up the first day of work.
Do you know why?
Economic constraints.
When it comes to credit, most immigrants are just left behind.
They don't qualify for credit because they lack a credit history.
But to build a credit history, you need to get some credit.
So, the question here is simple.
How can immigrants express their full economic potential
without having any access to economic resources?
So, MyGrants' next challenge will be access to credit.
Follow me.
If credit is linked to reputation and credibility,
we need to give the opportunity to all immigrants
to build and measure through evidence, their reputation and their credibility.
So, instead of taking into consideration
the economic and the financial background,
we will take into consideration for each applicants' credit potential
and take into consideration factors like the quality of the online training,
the proficiency in economic and financial literacy,
and the future career placement.
We believe that helping future customers
be successful with economics and financially independent
is good for immigrants, it's good for business
and it's good for society overall.
But several challenges
that immigrants, and MyGrants, are trying to face and overcome
are the same challenges
that you, European citizens, should take into consideration.
Let's take skills recognition as a concrete example.
Did you ever ask yourself
why 40% of European companies, including MyGrants,
have difficulties finding the right people
with the right skills they need to grow and innovate?
The answer is simple: lack of basic skills.
Around a quarter of European adults struggle with reading and writing,
and many more have poor digital skills.
And if you think that financial exclusion is only an immigrant-related problem,
you're completely wrong.
There is an estimated two billion working-age adults, globally,
who have no access to financial services
delivered by formal financial institutions.
In Europe, 47% of adults have no bank account
and many more have no savings.
So, financial exclusion increases the risk of social exclusion and poverty
without any distinction.
I know some of you would like me to continue,
but it's not necessary.
What is perhaps necessary is that all parties involved,
especially immigrants and host communities,
take their part of responsibility as soon as possible,
also because we have our window of opportunity now
to do something extraordinary.
Thank you.
(Applause)