- Hi, my name is Soraya Beheshti.
I study at Columbia University.
I'm a student of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies
and I'm half Iranian, half New Zealander, born in Dubai
and I'm about to graduate.
So, that's really exciting.
In my spare time,
I have a startup called Karvan
which builds innovative technology to improve the lives
of refugees around the world.
It's an alternative economic system.
But I'm also really into fitness, living healthy
and traveling consciously.
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So one thing I really love about Columbia is that
you're constantly surrounded by greatness.
This is the Graduate School of Journalism
where they do that prestigious Pulitzer Prize
and here's our statue of Joseph Pulitzer.
So every year, students actually get to attend the Prize.
It's much like when the United Nations General Assembly
happens and we get world leaders coming to speak to us,
who we actually get to meet and interact with.
It's pretty amazing.
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So we're at my absolutely favorite coffee shop on campus.
This is Joe's.
It's so popular that they actually have three locations.
This is the warmest one.
And this is the amazing vegan chocolate chip cookie.
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- Cheers, to Columbia.
- To Columbia.
- So, tell me about academic culture at Columbia.
- Okay well, Columbia is, if I'm being honest,
it's pretty much known for having a very rigorous
curriculum, which can be really stressful.
So it's super important that if students are
coming here, they have a really good support system
and they're well, they're really passionate about what they
study 'cause when you're passionate about what you study,
it's a lot easier to put that time in
and to make those sacrifices.
So for me, I never heard of anthropology.
Actually, kind of vaguely.
But I didn't really know too much about what it was.
- [Interviewer] So what is anthropology about?
- Anthropology is really the study of humans
and human societies.
So it's a lot of-, I mean you can do
archeological anthropology, or sociocultural
which is what I do.
It incorporates psychology, philosophy,
history, historiography.
And it's really trying kind of trying to make sense about
why we are the way we are and
ultimately, a huge belief at the core of anthropology
is that we're really just subjects.
There's no, sort of, innate human personality
that's specific to races or cultures.
We're really just humans.
- Interesting. - Trying to make it
in whatever environment we have.
- Right.
So do you go in, knowing you want to stay anthropology
or was it something you kind of discovered
as you started taking courses here?
- Yeah, I wanted to study Economics and Political Science.
- Okay, related. Yeah.
- Tried it, wasn't for me.
So I picked up Middle Eastern Studies which I really love,
obviously being from the Middle East.
And Anthropology, and they go really well together
because a lot of what we look at is conflict colonialism
and how that affects the human mind or the human subject.
So it's been really useful because
I wanna go back and have a career that's
rebuilding some of those, or tending to some of those
kind of, historical wounds.
So having a good knowledge of how they actually impacted
every sector of society
from the poorest to the wealthiest
is really good for me.
- That's really cool.
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So now that you've spent four years at Columbia,
are there any things that really surprised you
or were unexpected?
- Unexpected.
Well, there is a lot of tension on campus.
I'll be honest about that.
With conflicting social groups.
But that's actually not necessarily a bad thing, right?
It means that, no matter what you believe,
politically, socially,
you can find your community here
and Columbia is known as the Social Justice Ivy,
so I think it's a really nice environment to be in
when you're surrounded by people who are actually
committed to bringing down structures of oppression
and fighting for what they believe in.
Columbia has a huge history with that,
with being active during the civil rights era,
during the anti-Vietnam era
and even now, yeah.
- Cool.
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- So we're here at my apartment now.
As you can see, I'm a big collector of books.
I actually moved some of my collection back to Dubai
'cause I'm in the process of graduating.
So I ended up moving downtown in my final year
just because I had spent the first few years
up around Columbia's campus
and felt like I knew that area super well,
and I just wanted to get a different feel
of New York City life.
So I moved down to FiDi
because it's off the same subway line as the Columbia stop
so it's super easy to get to.
Fun fact: my building actually used to be Goldman Sachs
but they sold it during the Occupy Movement
and moved their office elsewhere
and turned it into apartments.
So that's where I live.
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New York was kind of, almost a dream I guess
or always a dream I guess,
for me and most other people on the planet
so it was really exciting to go here
and that's one of the main reasons why I chose Columbia.
I feel like especially if you have professional aspirations,
New York is a great place to be.
Especially if those aspirations are internationally oriented
just because of the presence of the UN
and all these other institutions.
So it's really fun to be around there
and it's also fun for me to have moved downtown
because I feel like I've got a really good feel
of the campus life and all the scene around campus
but now, being downtown
is a completely different environment.
I'm surrounded by people doing their Wall Street thing
which is fun.
But, of course, it's exciting.
There's amazing nightlife,
culture, concerts.
I've been able to go to concerts from bands
I knew in the Middle East, here
and it changes it completely.
It's a totally different environment.
And also you just-, you meet people from all over the world.
Everyone's doing really interesting things and
no matter who you are or what kind of person you are,
in New York, you can find a crowd.
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- Okay, so where are we now?
- So we're in the Science & Engineering Building.
It's one of my favorite buildings
because it contains my favorite library.
We have 12 libraries on campus
so typically, everyone has a favorite.
They're all pretty different.
But I really like comfortable chairs, so
this one has them.
And this is where we have meetings for Karvan
which is the startup I founded.
- Very cool.
So tell me about Karvan.
- Okay, yeah.
So I've been spending the last two years
involved with the refugee cause,
volunteering in refugee camps
all across the Middle East and Europe.
Also studying it,
I did another Columbia program
which was studying Arabic
and Migration Displacement in Diaspora.
Half in Jordan and half in Paris.
- [Interviewer] Wow.
- So living with a Palestinian family in Jordan
and a Moroccan family in Paris
and studying Exile.
So it was really amazing.
From there, I ended up having the idea for the app
which is to create this alternative economic system
that's not based on money.
- Interesting, so it's not based on money.
What is it based on?
- It's based on time.
So time being the one thing we all have somewhat equally.
We all have 24 hours in a day.
No matter who you are,
no matter where you went to school.
68 million people have been displaced around the world
and only 1% of them have work permits
that allow them to earn money in the places where they live.
- Right.
- So, users create profiles
detailing the skills and services they want to offer
and when another user searches
those, they're connected and they trade these services.
So, essentially, lawyers from around the world
could contribute legal assistance to refugees
in a camp in Greece.
And for every hour, they earn points
and they can use their points to buy, like,
a Syrian cooking lesson or graphing design work.
- Oh, interesting.
So it's basically like bartering whatever you can provide
for whatever you need.
- Yeah, but it's not a direct trade.
So I can earn points from you and spend them elsewhere.
- Oh, that's really cool.
- Yeah, it's just like a currency
except where everyone is really valued equally.
So the time of an Afghan refugee who missed out on
formal education is gonna be worth the same as
someone who had more opportunities growing up.
To equalize the gap.
- How awesome.
- Thank you. - Yeah.
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- It's super exciting to have you guys today of all days
'cause I'm about to get my grad gown,
so I'm gonna take you guys with me.
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I got it!
Guys, it's so worth the hard work. (laughs)
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