An innovative app to educate immigrant blue workers in the UAE&capture their innovative ideas&health&safety incidents via voice notes in any language

#SDGAction42761

Description

Intro

We have 2.2 Million blue collar workers in the UAE. They form 52% of the workforce & have challenges with their education and digital literacy. We launched Smart Labour as the 1st app for workers to educate them and offer them an option to share innovative ideas via voice notes in any language, coupled with free telecom credit as a reward to talk their families for free. This also included engaging employers and residents to buy telecom vouchers online to entice workers to learn and share their innovative ideas. Something like this had not been done before.

Objective of the practice

OBJECTIVES 
1. To provide fully inclusive critical education to all male and female blue collar workers in the UAE (basic literacy & numeracy, life long soft skills, UAE labour law, technology & digital literacy, UAE culture) 
2. To enable Digital transformation for blue collar workers via an exclusive tailor make app 
3. Fostering innovation amongst blue collar workers and providing them an option to report their innovative ideas & health & safety incidents 
4. Contribute to the country's happiness and digital transformation agenda's by integrating the blue collar workers in the UAE without any discrimination on gender, ethnicity etc 
5. To accelerate UAE progress in areas of digital transformation and happiness 
5. To prepare blue collar workers for the 4th Industrial revolution by empowering them with critical digital literacy skills 
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES 
1. Unique way of using technology to educate, engage large number blue collar workers and improve their contribution to the economy 
2. 1st Mass project aimed at reaching out to all workers in the UAE 
3. Smart Labour was chosen by the Expo 2020 team as a global innovation and will be showcased to the world during the Expo 2020 event in Dubai 
4. Contributes to multiple SDG's/2030 agenda 
5. Part of the UN Global Compact program with a full commitment to contribute to SDG's/2030 agenda. 
6. Improve productivity of workers via employee specific digital education & skills measurement 
7. Potential for expanding Smart Labour in the Middle East, to potentially reach 9Million+ workers 
8. Providing residents an easy way to support workers by buying vouchers with a few clicks 
9. Including blue collar workers by making the Dubai Government's happiness meter available to blue collar workers to vote like the white collar workers 
10. A great working best practice to make things better for workers with positive engagement of workers and local communities whilst contributing to country level goals 
CHALLENGES & SOLUTIONS 
1. Access to blue collar workers: We got support from the Ministry of Human Resources & Emiritisation (MOHRE) to get access to workers. The UAE Government fosters innovation at all levels and we signed a MOU with (MOHRE) to promote blue collar innovation and reward workers, whilst being fully inclusive from all aspects 
2. Funding: Expo 2020 team supported Smart Labour financially at critical points without taking any equity. We also got two big employers for paid implementation. Dubai Taxi (11,000 drivers) and The Ras Al Khaimah Waste Management Agency (800 workers) 
3. Awareness: The local media helped greatly in spreading the word 
4. Lack of interest of workers to learn: Incentivize workers with free telecom credit and leveraged the UAE community's desire to do good for workers. Also provide onsite on awareness sessions in multiple languages

Partners

2.2. million Blue collar workers, employers,(MOHRE), Government of Dubai, Expo 2020 Team & UAE residents.
1. MOU with MOHRE for blue collar innovation
2. Agreement with Expo 2020 for financial & sustainability support (Expo 2020's team of international experts reviewed Smart Labour's feasibility comprehensively)
3. Dubai Smart Government partnership to use Happiness meter software to capture happiness of blue collar workers
4. Employers using Smart Labour app for productivity have seen great value in saving time and improving productivity & happiness
5. We have 50,000 registered workers
6. UAE residents have purchased gift vouchers

Implementation of the Project/Activity

Initiation
Reason: Was initiated in 2015after many of years of blue collar related volunteering activities by the founder. Founder has 20+ years of experience in IT in the education domain
Planning
1. Core team formation (blue collar workers, educational experts, technology experts, sales & marketing specialists)
Funding planning (bootstrapping initially, followed by funding from Expo 2020 team)
2. Software technology Development Set up (Using Agile development methodology)
3.Marketing & Partnership planning (identifying key potential partners)
4. Implementation team set up (field team to visit labour accommodations)
5. Defining KPI's and key metrics (number of users, happiness index results
Executing
1. Obtaining funding
2. Developing software platform (Web based app + Android + IOS App)
3. Develop content (video & visual content)
3. Finalising strategic partnerships (Federal & local Government entities, telecom providers, employers)
4. Labour accommodation installation and activations
5. Pilot implementation
6. Big bang implementation
7. Participating in events and other marketing activities
Monitoring
1. Monitoring KPI's & reporting to Expo team
(Happiness meter results blue collar workers in the UAE Target: 95%)
(Number of registered users Target: 50,000 Per year)
2. Making adjustments (We made major adjustments in the content and added new features based on real feedback from workers)

Results/Outputs/Impacts

1. Chosen by Dubai Expo 2020 Live Team from 6,965 projects
2. Won many awards from leading (https://www.smartlabour.ae/#/awards)
3. Presented the project to ILO in Geneva and received positive feedback
4. Great publicity & support from the Media
5. Achieved all KPI's as per the plan
5. Part of the UN's Global Compact program
6. Got blue collar workers voted on the Dubai Smart Government's happiness meter
7. Mentored by word class professionals with global exposure with specific feedback opportunities from senior executives from Boston Consulting & Accenture
8. Built two schools in rural India in an area from where workers come to work in the Middle East and took 500 kids to school for the first time in their life
Key Achievements
1. 50,000 registered users
2. App in the Android and IOS stores
3. MOU with Ministry of Human Resources for wider implementation
4. Happiness meter rating of 95%
5. Fully new versions of the app
The UAE Government is supporting Smart Labour and is enabling workers to use digital services of providers like the white collar e.g money transfers to home countries, online shopping etc. All of this is adding new lifelong skills for workers

Enabling factors and constraints

Passion from our founder and team to do something positive for workers in inclusive way
Great support and funding from the Expo 2020 Live team. We bootstrapped initially and took the impact funding route to help us get the solution up and running. We then got a few paying customers and support from the Ministry of Human Resources & Emiritisation, which is the entity responsible for all affairs related to blue collar workers. We used both the push approach in terms of getting Government support to implement and get access to workers and also the pull approach by making the app more valuable and attractive to workers. Got feedback from seasoned professionals with a global footprint.

Set up full time employee software development and implementation teams to develop great tailor made software for blue collar workers. We also identified that nothing like blue collar innovation existed and embarked on a journey to introduce this connect to employers and workers with full Government support

We delved on the idea of offering blue collar workers the best of gift of education focusing on English language & life skills via an app.
We did an initial study and found that blue collar workers were not interested in learning. Based on the above we launched the 1st exclusive app for workers that offered them education with an option to collect points as they learn and the possibility of converting the points to telecom credit to talk to their families for free. We targeted residents and employers to buy telecom vouchers through the app to fill up the reward kitty. After 1.5 years we have 50,000 users & support from the Ministry of Human Resources & Emiritisation Department and the Expo 2020 team. We have got workers to use technology effectively and are preparing them to live and thrive in a digital enabled society. We also introduced the concept of capturing innovative ideas from workers via the app using voice notes in any language removing any barriers in terms of typing

Sustainability and replicability

We have worked push and pull strategies to meet our objectives and KPI's and have full Government support to execute our plan.
We have strengthened our technical and implementation teams & have established the operational mechanics to scale gracefully.
We have funding for 12-15 months and will get 10 more customers on board within the next 10-15 months
Plans
We are focusing on the UAE & particularly the Government, construction & hospitality sectors.
• We want to put UAE on the map for doing something completely different and innovative for blue collar workers
• We want to reach out to the 2.2. Million blue collar workers in the UAE over the next 2/3 years
• We want to engage residents and employers to buy telecom vouchers and gifts via Heba, our gift store
• We also want to collect data about workers & provide a 360% view of the blue collar workforce and be able to provide deep insights and also predictive analytics that can help tremendously in the areas of health & safety, wellbeing & workforce planning for e.g. we want to be able to alert the central office of a taxi company in real time that a driver may have a heart attack to take immediate action and prevent an accident etc.
• We want to provide basic education to kids who grow up in rural areas from where workers come and also provide them exposure to cutting edge technology to learn life skills. We are planning to build 100 schools over the next 20 years

Business model and main sources of income.
1. A user fee per user, per year for the accessing the educational & rewards platform
2. Service fee on all gift voucher purchases by supporters
3. Sponsorship fees from organisations who want to support Smart Labour
4. Service fee from telecom top ups
5. Bespoke software development for blue collar employers who need specific white labeling / custom modules / fully new products
Organization’s governance structure
Financial Position & Investment
• Smart Labour is fully owned by Black & White Computer Trading Co LLC
• We don’t have any liabilities and financial obligations
• All the investment for Smart Labour has come bootstrap funding from the founder with any loans
• We need 155,228 paid workers which is 14.01% of the total blue-collar workers in the UAE.
• Smart Labour as a brand and trademark is owned by a holding company, named Black & White Holding, which is fully owned by the founder
Overall Governance
• The founder has extensive, two decades experience in the UAE Government sector & is well aware about the blue-collar workforce related subject and as such is capable of promoting and projecting the project
• We have advisors from the education, construction sectors & senior Ministry of Human Resources & Emiritisation officials to guide and mentor Smart Labour

Conclusions

Impact mission statement or theory of change 
Mission Statement 
“Providing education & digital engagement to blue collar workers with local community & Governments support” 
 
Key Stakeholders & Value Addition 
 
Smart Workers (Blue Collar Workers) 2.2 Million in the UAE 
To address the root cause of blue-collar workers challenges i.e. education and provide them with rewards to encourage them learn, improving their happiness and overall inclusion in the new digital economy 
 
Supporters (Residents & Employers) 
Offering Supporters options to do good & purchase telecom & other vouchers for Smart Workers from their smart phones via a few clicks 
 
Government 
To positively impact the ME country’s happiness & digital transformation 
 
Lessons Learnt 
1. We have a huge opportunity to make meaningful impact on huge blue collar population in the Middle East 
2. Workers can learn from an English interface with audio support in different languages 
3. The UAE Government is ready to support innovation all the way 
4. The Expo live program is a life saver for social entrepreneurs 
5. Blue collar workers have innovative ideas, which don't get properly documented 
6. We tried a new approach of having an exclusive app and technology platform for blue collar workers and it worked 
7. Technology can help in bringing out mass impact

Other sources of information

SDGS & Targets

Goal 4

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 8

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 16

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels