Homeward

In 2019, UNHCR estimated that 79.5 million people were forcibly displaced. However, only 107,800 were resettled. While access to identity is key, the right set of identifiers and data have a positive impact on how limited or declining asylum processes are navigated.

Homeward is a tripartite solution. 

First, is access to trusted, self-managed identification that is accessible, portable and factors in technological availability and literacy. This is made private and secure through the use of decentralized disposable IDs.

Second is intelligent resettlement with data collected in Phase 1, which correlates individuals’ data with global cities data. Users are matched to an optimal city and provided an alternative migration pathway to that city, leaving asylum quotas for the truly needy.

The final phase is a marketplace for reintegration services. Once the destination is determined and approved, new residents are connected to support and services needed to successfully integrate.

According to the UNHCR, 79.5 million were forcibly displaced worldwide in 2019. This excludes other forms of displacement such as homelessness, economic migration, and climate-based displacement. Asylum and refugee quotas have decreased significantly and destination cities bear the economic and social burdens of resettlement.

Identification and document verification are major challenges for displaced persons. In many cases, being identified has led to state-sanctioned exclusion or persecution, making them wary of such systems. There are also varying criteria and quotas for refugee-receiving countries. The lack of consistency in data across individuals, INGOs and countries leads to a lack of agency interoperability and a fragmented global migration ecosystem.

Currently, the nature of refugee resettlement centres on a burden narrative. Displaced persons are unable to present themselves as value-adding to an economy or society. Asylum applications are often identity, security, and nature-of-displacement focused, resulting in an incomplete assessment of integration potential and forces refugees to rely on goodwill immigration policies. Work experience and education from home are often invalidated, and refugees are economically dependent on destination countries’ welfare services or informal sector work. These experiences in turn help shape negative public opinions that hinder open and compassionate asylum policies

Our primary clients are cities, countries, international agencies, and organisations leading efforts for displaced populations. Homeward disperses claims across more cities to alleviate burdens and bring in young talent. In collecting employability data, claims are dispersed across existing visa categories. Since certain profiles fit specialised immigration programmes that process applications more swiftly than refugee claims, humanitarian visas go to urgent cases. We also target companies with commitments to hire formerly displaced persons.

Our primary beneficiaries are displaced populations through a portable, consistent and trusted identification validation, resettlement opportunities, and connection to support, opportunities, and services.

To understand and engage our stakeholders, we go straight to the source. For example, in 2018, we travelled to Tijuana to meet the migrant caravan at the border. To validate our approach, we interviewed 200 of them, Migration Mexico, UNHCR staff, the Embassy, consular staff etc. We also have on-the-ground partners doing the same for Venezuelan and Uganda refugees. 

We ensure the technology is implementable across a range of contexts so the technology truly serves them. For example, SMS infrastructure is used where there is a lack of access to WiFi and smartphones. We ensure protocols for explaining the system and securing voluntary, informed consent.

We relate to both dimensions. 

When building our multi-modal identification management system, there are key questions that we answer: ‘Who are you?’, ‘Are you who you say you are?’, ‘Have you always been this person?’, as well as labour potential assessments, social cultural preferences etc. We then create varying access controls for verification across migration pathways, and enable a blind marketplace for companies and organisations that offer support and services to newly resettled persons. Yet, we have also channeled much of our effort into last mile delivery and execution for people with limited access to technology, including using SMS-based interfaces.

Our approach to digital identification encompasses the identity lifecycle which includes: Identity Proofing, Issuance, Authentication, Authorization and ID Management. Our multi-modal identity profile contains physical and behavioural biometrics, employability potential and socio-cultural preferences data, limited GPS data, and a smart contract based public key infrastructure. We developed a fractionalized, decentralized storage mechanism. When we collect biometrics, we practice cloaking, which renders facial images unrecognizable to external recognition algorithms. We do not store this data.

Homeward is end-to-end, an approach which currently has no direct competitor. We are a developer and aggregator of parts that together enable fluid system interaction. Beyond identities, we extend to two other stages: optimal resettlement and a marketplace of support services. 

Homeward’s profile connects employability potential and socio-cultural preferences data to city and country data to determine optimal places for resettlement. By identifying a claimant’s invisible profile, the system is also able to identify alternative migration pathways to the destination, navigating through open-ended immigration programs to ensure that qualified applicants can find a more efficient way out of their displacement, and that the world’s humanitarian programs truly do focus on the most dire and urgent cases.

Then, we introduce our blind marketplace. Cities are able to prepare for an incoming new resident in a more proactive way. Private sector partners offer hiring or services. The partner does not have identifying information on new residents, unless the new resident decides to acquire the product or service.

Homeward accounts for last-mile barriers by combining exponential with legacy technologies.

In order to validate our approach, we travelled to Tijuana, Mexico to meet the migrant caravan. As a non-technological validation, we interviewed 200 caravan members, along with representatives from Migration Mexico, the Mexican National Employment Service, UNHCR, the Embassy of Honduras, and more. We accompanied over 60 caravan members through the process of filling out a simple worksheet detailing their past experience and highest level of education, which was then manually cross referenced to a job opening database of 15,000 low-skilled opportunities. Participants were immediately matched with a job, and then used the offer letter to process a 12 month humanitarian work permit to legally remain in Mexico to fill that position. In the end, 3,500 out of 4,200 people selected this option over crossing the border illegally, and over pursuing asylum claims in both the US and Mexico. We captured some of the stories here. We have on-the-ground partners to do the similar validations for Venezuelan and Uganda refugees. 

Canadian public official on Population Growth & Immigration Adriana Rivas said:  “Having a unique client profile that would identify and assess different factors prior to a family’s arrival would help host cities to be better equipped and prepared for their successful settlement and integration into the local community. Cities around Canada are constantly looking for different ways in which they can better support refugee resettlement. The kind of information Homeward would provide would go a long way in alleviating the challenges around triaging our services and opportunities.”

Our creative process follows an 8 step process. First, we thoroughly research the direct and indirect problems we are facing. In this case, the problem is the fractured data landscape facing refugees, which was having a domino effect in resettlement and reintegration. We then design an end-to-end solution featuring stages of data collection, data processing, and data visualization and sharing, along with underlying automation and traceability. This design goes through a process of feedback and non-technological proofs to make sure it works in the real world, not just in the lab. We then develop iterative versions of the solution, and source complementary tech from best-in-class providers. We then plan our implementation and the last mile delivery of our solution before thorough testing and auditing. We then conduct a series of low cost pilots which build trust in the solution and ensure it’s viability. Only then are our solutions scaled and commercialized, which means we are confident in the quality of our deployment.

In terms of implementation, our project management methodology follows the approach of a logical framework matrix. On the minor scale, metrics and milestones are tracked. These metrics are labelled as outputs and flow into objectives. Each objective is made in service of a goal, with a goal being complete when the objectives are fulfilled. Completed goals lead to positive outcomes. Future goals build upon this work in order to ensure continued growth.

The project management system can also be rationally mapped backwards. The final outcome of a successfully implemented project is predicated on the completion of goals, which are further  predicated on the implementation and fulfillment of objectives, which can only be fulfilled by metrics or outputs.  This methodological system ensures two main needs. First, it ensures goal orientation and is a strategy for short and long term implementation. Secondly, it ensures that the project implementation is always in line with the end result that the client needs.This is why Emerge’s solutions are able to have a positive change for their clients and the operating environment as a whole.

Our solution is components-based and allows for integration with operators, partners, and service providers through the use of open standards where possible, non-exclusivity agreements to avoid vendor or provider lock-ins, and the use of APIs. Our approach to identification is similar to a toolbox. We supply each individual with a private toolbox that is filled with diverse identification components. We then build a protective smart contract layer around these components. Organizations use the system through an API and must request a specific type of identification verification, such as a birth certificate equivalency. The smart contract layer auto generates a one-time disposable identification for the specific verification need. All data linked to the disposable ID is closely controlled by the defined conditions, including time and validation specifications, which individuals receive reports on. Once the time expires and the identification has been verified, it loses its validity and self-destructs leaving only the record of issuance on the blockchain. The smart contract layer ensures that the toolbox itself is never opened up despite interacting with external stakeholders and operating similarly to a marketplace. 

Emerge has experience integrating its systems with legacy technologies and institutional protocols. We recently deployed a project connecting 14,000 rural farmers in Uganda to a blockchain via SMS, and gave a local government ministry access to the system as an operator who can verify farm information. We also have partnerships in place so that organizations recognize the validity of our ID for use of their service.

Given that our solution is modular, we have developed several ways of connecting to other existing and complementary identification systems. For example, we have become a feature within a government-produced mobile application. We have also created APIs to allow for system engagement. Finally, we have built custom Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) in an effort to make the process of interacting with Homeward as straightforward as possible. The achievement of this internal core requirement is made possible by the combination of exponential and legacy technologies that make the solutions implementable within a range of contexts. Because the majority of our larger organization’s work has been in bureaucratic or technologically limited environments, our last mile delivery and execution is strong. 

Our goal is to become foundational architecture for a marketplace-like environment that allows for identity management and resettlement processes to be more fluid across relevant stakeholders. This means our approach to the identity space has been collaborative rather than competitive. 

Finally, our focus on user friendliness has resulted in technology that has been used by indigenous communities, governments, rural farmers, highly connected individuals, non-profit organizations, and more. We prioritize informed consent within blind systems, and use a pilot-centric implementation strategy to ensure the technology demonstrably works within a given context before attempting to fully implement it or scale it.

As mentioned above, Homeward is modular and intended to be foundational architecture for a holistic approach to identity management and resettlement. That said, given the varying state of technological infrastructure and systems across stakeholders involved within the global displacement ecosystem, we have found the optimal strategy to work with them to diagnose and determine the integration strategy best suited for their needs. This may mean customizing an API for them, building them a PWA or tablet-first interface, or integrating into their existing systems. By relying on blockchain technology and smart contracts, we are also able to ensure higher degrees of portability once proper credential verifications are conducted. Our system supports interoperability by also adhering to recognised standards to ensure addressability and verifiability of claims.

Centric to our strategy in avoiding any form of lock-ins is the concept of disposable IDs, which minimize unauthorized reuse of personal data by any connected third party service providers. The IDs and the limited sharing of data is generalizable, making it easier to apply a digital ID internet layer to any existing communication service. Because the IDs are generated for each single interaction between a user and the service they are interacting with, the IDs are disposed of after an event transaction has expired. This means that a larger range of participants can tap into our ecosystem in a more secure manner.

Finally, we maintain an open partnerships strategy to co-develop or integrate components that add value to the system as a whole.

Emerge prioritizes last mile delivery and execution for technologically excluded or limited populations. Consequently, we develop solutions that leverage legacy or simple technologies, such as SMS text messaging, bluetooth or passive and autonomous IoT devices, setting up temporary mesh networks, and more. We occasionally tap into more cutting-edge technologies such as connectivity providing helium devices, drones, and more.

To account for users with low literacy and numeracy levels, Homeward deliberately makes extensive use of multilingual and accented audio and visual cues suitable for a range of target audiences. We also take into consideration important cultural nuance, which is why to adapt our Spanish content. We are working with an artificial intelligence company focused on recognizing the Latin American variants of Spanish and recommending changes to account for those variants. This ensures that those with low literacy levels can still access Homeward by hearing instructions and key information, and guided through with visuals and iconography.

We have experience in this domain. Some of our projects have been implemented with tech weary indigenous communities, rural farmers with little-to-no technological literacy, low-level government officials in Uganda using date technology, and more. Our success in these deployments is partly due to our use of legacy and simplified technologies and user experiences, as well as the intense implementation training and strategy we undertake at local levels.

We did a non-technological proof to validate our approach, which reached 3,500 people. The pilots we are currently structuring with our current resources will reach approximately 25,000 refugees and migrants in Venezuela and Uganda, and a little over 25,000 homeless people across Texas in the next year. We would like to serve 100,000 people in a year, and scale aggressively toward 3 million people within the next 5 years. Our projections will adjust according to how many resources and implementation support we are able to secure during critical stages of deployment.

Our goals over the next few years will drive Homeward’s growth, in scale, functionality, and impact. We will continue to develop a robust ecosystem of partners that can help us continue to scale the solution and expand our reach. We are looking to narrow down key integration needs and tendencies in order to streamline our onboarding process and create more replicable open APIs. We also aim to work more directly with IoT device manufacturers in order to find or co-develop more intricate devices that can aid our more complicated implementation contexts. We have already begun achieving this goal by establishing an IoT research and development partnership with a Latin American university. We are also looking to develop the scope and scale of our marketplace, so that over time, people using Homeward can find all the services they need when newly resettled. This removes integration barriers from individuals, and adds customisation and effectiveness to welcome and support services allocation. We are hoping to begin certain processes much earlier in the Homeward journey. For example, time spent waiting for visa approval or asylum requests could be used productively toward remote employment, training and education opportunities, or more. Finally, we are looking to build mechanisms for individual users to take certain components of their sovereign data sets and be able to commoditize them to interested partners for passive income generation. These feedback loops would help service providers and partners gain far better insights into the intervention effectiveness, while being proactive about datas sovereignty

There are four main barriers Homeward will face moving forward. The first is financial. Homeward needs to build its financial viability while still upholding its underpinning values of price accessibility. To date, we have worked on a case by case basis, which means we also need to ensure our pricing and revenue models are consistent across stakeholders. Another important barrier we currently face is to secure buy-in from key stakeholders from across the resettlement space, to secure their participation and ensure we build Homeward as a comprehensive and collaborative ecosystem with fluidity. Homeward benefits from network effects and the recognition of its system by governments and international non-governmental organizations, and more. Third, as privacy and security concerns evolve quickly over time, Homeward must continue to proactively navigate these concerns and ensure that all data is being treated properly and with precedent setting sovereignty, consent protocols, and more. As technology continues to evolve, we will need to replace components and maintain the pace of this progress in order to ensure the system can respond to new needs. Finally, as we scale, we must ensure informed consent can take place regardless of the level of technological or basic literacy of our users.

We are addressing these barriers as soon and as proactively as possible. For example, we will be working with a pricing strategist on our revenue models and to develop a suite of pricing options and payment structures to offer stakeholders. This will ensure that our revenue model remains competitive, consistent, and accessible. 

We have been developing an aggressive partnership strategy, including reaching out to potential competitors to become partners instead. We will continue to work with our existing partners to maintain the relationships. We will reach out to key stakeholders and desired partners for feedback in order to tailor Homeward components to their needs and expectations. 

To proactively innovate within Homeward’s privacy and security aspects, we are designing our identity management combining exponential technologies with legacy technologies to build blind systems that leverage technological concepts such as Zero-Knowledge Proofs, cloaking, and more. We will not open up an individual's toolbox to any external user, which is why verifiers can only interact with our smart contract layer. We will also continue to join standard- and best practice-setting committees to ensure that we can anticipate changes to regulations and standards. 

Finally, we will continue to devote significant resources to last mile delivery, as well as on the clarity on the use, storage, and collection of data. We incorporate multilingual audio-visual versions of key information, in order to ensure inclusiveness and straightforwardness across Homeward. We are accounting for language barriers and nuance by working with natural language processing to make subtle changes.

Homeward is a solution within Emerge, a socio-technological solutions development lab focused on addressing complex global issues through the use of exponential technologies.

We have a full-time core team of 5 members that cover diverse areas of expertise including engineering, back-end and front-end development, operations, partnerships, and project management. We also count on 10 other team members that work with us part-time. Their areas of expertise are largely technical, legal, and operational. Finally, we keep a list of go-to contacts for short term contracts or advisory, which we use on a need basis. The list is globally renowned in a diverse range of industries and sectors, including digital identification, cybersecurity, migration, and more

Emerge’s team and partnership network are global, passionate, talented and committed. Our remote nature means the pandemic did not interrupt our business. We currently have staff based in Honduras, Canada, the United States, Australia, Germany, UAE, the UK, India, Hong Kong, Uganda, Colombia, and more. This allows us to be able to respond 24/7 to any issues, 

We also also work with some of the foremost experts in their respective fields. This includes prior experiences with travel exemptions and governmental identification verification, the UN ecosystem, developing neural networks for deep learning, companies that have sold software to over 80 global banks, award winning contributors to OpenGov data challenges, developing stochastic methods for assuring software in critical systems, and mathematically proven software for safety critical systems, working at St. George Refugee Relief Committee, deploying blockchain based systems for local governments, and doing groundwork experience includes mass movements for system enrolment across multiple

markets in North America and Africa.

We have a gender, preferences, regional, and lived experience range that allows for holistic design and development. We also have a proven track record working with often excluded and vulnerable populations.

Finally, given the nature of our partnerships, we are able to tap into deep expertise in specific domain areas, including extended reality, token economics, social impact, migration, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and more.

Our partnerships fall into three categories; technical partners, operational partners, and implementing partners. 

Our technical partners include Penta Network, Smartifice, Yunity, Human Leap, Xertify, and Gimly. They contribute complementary technology or development as needed. We work particularly closely with these organizations.

Our operational partners include MMH, KCL Blockchain, UNITEC, Agencia de Innovacion Pública, BlockEm Ledger, Pocmi, eGovern, Gaudium Capital, and more. These partners help us increase our internal and external operational capacity, be it through contributing team members to specific projects, supporting our on-the-ground preparations, or leading a particular aspect within the project implementation and commercialization pipeline.

Finally, we also maintain implementation partnerships, which support our work by doing outreach on our behalf, creating go-to-market strategies for Emerge’s offerings, providing on-the-ground advisory for new pilots, new markets, or new projects. They also occasionally partner with us in order to help bring a project to life. For example, we are currently working with Rainforest Partnership to implement a project in the Amazon Rainforest.

We are constantly looking for new partnerships, including with organizations technically considered our competitors, because we are looking to make meaningful progress within what is a massive scale problem - so we need all the support we can get!

Homeward’s business model focuses on three user groups:

There are currently 2.6 billion people either displaced or at high risk of displacement, thus requiring assistance. We do not charge displaced persons to use Homeward’s core functions, including identity management, resettlement pathway, and connection to support services freely. In a second stage, users will be able to monetize components of their data, at which point we would charge a nominal percentage-based fee for those transactions.

Support agencies and governments currently spend vast sums of money resettling refugees, amounting to US$8.8 billion in the United States and over US$20 billion in Europe. Homeward’s approach significantly reduces costs and inefficiencies whilst providing resource-effective integration strategies. Additional benefits include agency interoperability, identity verification and minimized data redundancies. The public sector pays licensing fees, as well as a per person consumption-based fee structure.

Through Homeward, private sector companies offering products and services to newly resettled persons will need to integrate successfully tap into entirely new user segments, lowering acquisition costs and increasing lifetime value. Although they interact blindly until an individual opts to acquire said offerings, they still receive important feedback from anonymous users that reject their offerings at various levels. Additionally, they tap into potential labour talent. Therefore, to participate in the Homeward ecosystem, companies pay subscription fees, and commissions based on customer acquisition. Finally, hiring partner agreements are structured similarly to a recruitment firm.

In an effort to balance our commitment to pricing accessibility and to the viability of the solution over time, our path to sustainability includes the following strategies:

First, we engage key stakeholders in a low cost pilot, specifically customized to the clients’ needs, context, and budget. Once the pilot is successfully deployed, the client can trust that our technology is effective and reliable. 

We then begin to scale and move to a recurring pricing structure that is dependent on the nature of the participation within the ecosystem. For example, we charge monthly or annual licensing fees to all private and public sector ecosystem participants, along with either a commission or consumption based fee structure for our marketplace participants. These costs offset the price for end beneficiaries, as displaced persons are not charged for the services that relate to their identification generation and resettlement. 

The pilots extend our runway, and once scaled, we will be able to maintain viability over time.

We have not raised external funds for this project, and are currently bootstrapping its development as we find the right partners to bring onboard.

We are looking for grant-based funding in the amount of $200,000 within six to eight months to cover costs associated with labour, materials, hardware, and software, implementation costs and travel expenses. Funding will help with strategic design and development updates, as well as achieve key milestones to complete data ingestion pipelines, advance our neural network development, customize new user interfaces, finalize general system functions, run testing and simulations, and more.

We estimate that for our planned Homeward pilot deployments, we require between $200,000 - $250,000. As previously stated, these funds will be directed toward labour, materials, hardware, software development, implementation costs, and travel expenses.

Homeward is a holistic approach to an incredibly complex issue and the difficulties in addressing the issue are exacerbated by ecosystem-wide fragmentation featuring large, often bureaucratic primary stakeholders. Being selected for the Mission Billion Global Prize is almost unfathomable, because it would contribute to the success of this project so significantly. Access to opportunities for funding, and to be able to present the solution to partners such as the World Bank would give us the visibility, buy-in and funding to continue to do work that is incredibly meaningful to our team. Additionally, it would introduce us to a whole host of other organizations tackling the same issues, which we could then collaborate with in order to accelerate the pace of our development and implementation. Finally and most importantly, the ecosystem of Challenge partners and supporters would allow us to receive critical feedback on our approach, which would help us make the right adjustments to ensure the success of our pilots.

This project has been a passion project for our team and we have been working on it bootstrapped yet dedicated in an effort to bring it to market in the right way. While we are continuously advancing it, support like that provided to winners of the Challenge would infinitely accelerate our pace, balancing the tensions between the urgency of need for such an approach with the responsibility we have to make sure it is a safe, secure, dignified system that truly disrupts the global resettlement space.

We are looking for many partners in order to ensure Homeward’s implementation can meet the complexity of the issue. We are looking for partners to integrate complementary components and/or that offer resettlement support services and products. We also form partnerships with organizations looking to hire users based on the results of their labour integration assessments.

We are also looking for on-the-ground implementation support, as well as organizations to support us in navigating international regulations which will ultimately make it easier for us to scale over time. We are also interested in partners that can support our efforts to monitor and evaluate the success of our deployments. Finally, we are looking to increase our exposure in order to continue building our ecosystem and run pilots across different displacement scenarios.

Many Challenge partners could help Homeward accelerate and maximise its impact. UK Aid, specifically thanks to their mandate to ‘help people whose lives have been destroyed by disaster or conflict’ would make a powerful partner for supporting our efforts to onboard cities and countries across countries with aging populations, open to resettling refugees, and more. This aspiration extends to Australian Aid as well. 

Secondly, by partnering with Rapid Social Response, we could leverage their expertise in labour strategies in the world’s poorest countries to build even better context and tools within Homeward. 

Partners such as DT4D and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation could really help us expand our reach and navigate on-the-ground implementation barriers across the different geographies they work within. They could also support and advise our search for grant-based funding to cover our final runway before piloting our revenue models.

Finally, we’d be incredibly excited at potentially working with Omidyar Network, given their expertise and commitments to Refugees United, a secure missing persons database and tracing tool, as well as other identification systems. Omidyar is also a supporter of ID2020 and can aid our efforts of proactively exceeding standards and expectations for privacy, portability, minimization of disclosure, interoperability, and more.