Finnovation in Action - Field visit to Digital Divide Data (DDD)
By David Auerbach
Finnovators paid a site visit to Digital Divide Data on Tuesday, March 16. DDD, and its founder Sloan alum Jeremy Hockenstein, was the 2011 MIT Sloan Orientation case for our entire class. Having heard from Jeremy during orientation, and then again reading the case for our Finnovation Seminar, we were excited to have a chance to see this social enterprise in action.
Digital Divide Data’s mission statement is to provide technology-related jobs to Cambodians. But, in fact, it is doing far more than that.
What is DDD?
First, DDD addresses the needs of the poorest of the poor: it only accepts Cambodians whose prior incomes are less than a dollar a day, primarily from the countryside. For every 2000 applicants, they turn away 1900 – half of whom simply earn too much money already for DDD’s missions. DDD provides these applicants with a job in data entry and technical training to obtain first a high-school degree and then a tertiary degree. The data entry work is 6 hours a day and, on the day we were there, the work ranged from creating the digital archives for The Daily Princetonian to creating electronic records of MobiTel, Cambodia’s largest cell phone operator. Students study for 5.5 hours per day. They have the freedom to choose whatever major they want. After their 3rd year at DDD, students begin internships at local companies, and then after 4 years, they graduate the program and join the workforce.
The example of MobiTel is important as it demonstrates DDD’s commitment to changing how Cambodia operates. In the past, DDD had solely focused on companies based in the West. Records management is fairly conventional in the US, and companies use DDD because it offers high-quality services at a very low-cost. But, as they put it, when you approach a Cambodian company, they have never run formal electronic records management operations. Therefore, the starting point with these companies is fundamentally different and more difficult. DDD though works with these companies from a variety of industries – hospitals, cell phones, banking – to create their first such operations. Through this, DDD is helping to modernize Cambodia.
Changing Cambodia’s workforce
DDD is also committed to changing Cambodia through its own workforce. The General Manager Kunthy Kann was the best example. He grew up as a farmer in rural Cambodia. Then, he decided to change his lot cast. He began volunteering for a church where he learned English. Soon, he got connected to DDD and was hired as a data entry worker. He moved his way up the ranks and, in 2003, launched the satellite office of DDD in Battambang. Then, he won a scholarship to study management in Japan for two years. Finally, he returned to DDD as General Manager. This story was not a one-off – every staffer we met there had risen through the ranks of DDD.
Overall, it was hard to not be impressed with DDD. In many ways, they are hardly innovating at all: they simply provide technology-related jobs to Cambodians. And yet, entry-by-entry, they are having an immense impact on the Cambodian economy.
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