would you spare a cup of coffee if you
knew that it could and radicalism what
if I told you that by giving up one cup
of coffee a month and putting that five
dollars towards refugee higher education
together we could shut down a refugee
camp granted it may take 60,000 of us
but in a world of almost 8 billion
people that’s a handful of coffee
drinkers giving up 12 lattes a year
peanuts but for the 600 million youth
impacted by conflict worldwide it’s a
chance at a life it gives them the
skills and the education they need to
become financially independent and guard
themselves against radical ideology I’ve
worked for 12 years in the Middle East
and I’ve started a dozen tech and social
ventures to support our abuse who are in
conflict zones like Palestine and Iraq
and Syria and North Africa the
successful fundraising campaigns that we
did for youth led an organization in
Lebanon to invite me to help them figure
out how they can raise more funds for
youth higher education there I met Melek
with her small team of volunteers they
had raised funds for 200 scholarships
for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and
they wanted to do a lot more Malik told
me that refugee youth were disconnected
from the rest of the world by their
physical environment and that if she
could help one young lady go through
college and graduate and mentor her to
get a job that one young lady can get
her entire family of seven out of a
refugee camp having never been in one I
couldn’t comprehend the impact that the
environment had or your own young people
my two children had an idyllic life in
Northern Virginia and then Dubai they
went to schools rode their bikes made
friends and played team sports and
everywhere else that I’ve worked in the
Middle East seemed to offer a reasonable
environment for young people so on that
same trip I visited Brazil by Raj Nair a
Palestinian refugee camp that was set up
in Lebanon 69 years ago the tents that
you see transformed to a densely packed
concrete jungle many of the rooms or
homes we visited couldn’t get any
sunlight or airflow so mildew was
growing on the walls 11 a family of
eleven was living in a single room and
the narrow alleyways that we took that
were filled with trash were also covered
with exposed electrical wiring 40 people
had died that year that I visited from
electrocution just going to their homes
young people were hanging out in these
narrow alleyways not at school and not
at jobs because the unemployment rate in
refugee camps was at 60% and so kids saw
no hope in going on to get a degree and
despite these terrible conditions the
camp was very peaceful we were walking
around at 11:00 p.m. not concerned for
our safety most refugees the majority
are peaceful but they’re also very
vulnerable and all it takes is one
family crisis you’re the mom of this
young man can get ill and that would
maybe change his mind about accepting an
offer from a radical recruiter who
promises him with medical relief for his
mother or a better future life having
seen that I made higher education my
focus and I started a program with
Malik’s organization Jenna was the first
to join our program we put her profile
online and quickly got her crowd funded
by a group of women who also offered to
mentor her online within no time
Jenna was working with a social
publisher on with a virtual internship
with social publisher in the state
and soon she graduated and she’s been
helping other young women follow in her
footsteps the work that I did with medic
and a number of other organizations
helped a couple of thousand young people
through offering virtual mentorship that
human connection and giving online
internships with a little bit of crowd
funding these people young refugees were
becoming independent but that was a drop
in the bucket
because when the Syrian war broke out it
displaced 11 million people 450,000 of
them were in the university and their
education was disrupted because it was
my place of birth I went to visit a
refugee camp in Lebanon to see what I
could do and nothing I had seen would
have prepared me for the tragedy that
had befallen my fellow countrymen as far
as the eye can see
tents filled the Bekaa Valley and as
many as 8 people were packed in one tent
earning or not earning getting a stipend
of $100.00 a month that wasn’t enough
for a family and so everybody over 12
had to work kids were working in
sweatshops for 12-hour days making
flip-flops professionals accountants and
teachers were now working in farm fields
and factories earning $2 a day the
situation was pretty desperate for most
refugees that I met and the only
connection that young people had to the
rest of the world were their mobile
phones on that same visit I met I met a
young man Syrian from Homs he and his
family took the journey of death on feet
they walked 64 miles from hemp’s to the
Bekaa Valley more people had died than
we’re living in that journey and when
Armen was telling me the story of how he
saw his uncle and cousin killed in a
landmine explosion there was no
expression on his face
it was haunting It was as if he was
talking about somebody else that
expressionless face reminded me of when
I was younger and I had a physical
trauma in order to escape my fear I
disconnected from my emotions but by
disconnecting from fear
I also disconnected from love and all
other emotions that would go on to make
me a normal functioning human being and
it took a very long time for me to be
able to establish that connection again
Armand and the hundred thousand other
Syrians were University aged fled their
countries in hopes of a better life only
to find that there in host countries
that have very expensive universities
and very high unemployment rates they
couldn’t afford to work to pay for their
own education enrollment for Syrians
dropped from 20 percent down to 5
percent in universities and they’re
always told that they’re gonna go back
but the reality is they cannot for
Syrian refugees that’s been over five
years
Iraqis over ten Afghani is over 15 and
Palestinians have been out of their
homeland for over 60 years and this
wasn’t just an Arab refugee problem less
than 1% of refugees worldwide have
access to funding for higher education
so the nagging question that kept me up
at night
is how could we scale the work that we
did with Malik’s organization to support
the 450,000 Syrian youth worldwide
without access to university education
or the 500 million youth who are
impacted by conflict we knew that they
were connected to the world through
their mobile phones and from the work
that we did with Malik we knew that hope
gave them something to look forward to
an internship or a college degree and
with some funding we were able to
support them so along with a group of
coders refugee coders and young people
like Jenna we put together all of these
features in an
now I know that sounds like it’s
oversimplifying the problem but this was
a solution that they came up with they
wanted to connect to the rest of the
world through a social network that was
their own to allow people to see them
read their stories here about their
lives and also to allow these people who
are on the network to offer them
mentorship internships online or on a
day where these people felt sufficiently
caffeinated give up that $5.00 in lieu
of their education EDD is in its infancy
and we’re hoping that we can grow it if
we can get 6000 young people on it and
60 thousand who would support them we
could shut down a refugee camp with your
help we could do a lot more because the
original challenge is how we can fund
the 600 million youth out there living
in conflict and support them to become a
part of a more peaceful world and the
opportunity is first to offer them hope
human connection love and support for
their education and the funding they
need to join peaceful global citizens
are you with me
[Applause]
knew that it could and radicalism what
if I told you that by giving up one cup
of coffee a month and putting that five
dollars towards refugee higher education
together we could shut down a refugee
camp granted it may take 60,000 of us
but in a world of almost 8 billion
people that’s a handful of coffee
drinkers giving up 12 lattes a year
peanuts but for the 600 million youth
impacted by conflict worldwide it’s a
chance at a life it gives them the
skills and the education they need to
become financially independent and guard
themselves against radical ideology I’ve
worked for 12 years in the Middle East
and I’ve started a dozen tech and social
ventures to support our abuse who are in
conflict zones like Palestine and Iraq
and Syria and North Africa the
successful fundraising campaigns that we
did for youth led an organization in
Lebanon to invite me to help them figure
out how they can raise more funds for
youth higher education there I met Melek
with her small team of volunteers they
had raised funds for 200 scholarships
for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and
they wanted to do a lot more Malik told
me that refugee youth were disconnected
from the rest of the world by their
physical environment and that if she
could help one young lady go through
college and graduate and mentor her to
get a job that one young lady can get
her entire family of seven out of a
refugee camp having never been in one I
couldn’t comprehend the impact that the
environment had or your own young people
my two children had an idyllic life in
Northern Virginia and then Dubai they
went to schools rode their bikes made
friends and played team sports and
everywhere else that I’ve worked in the
Middle East seemed to offer a reasonable
environment for young people so on that
same trip I visited Brazil by Raj Nair a
Palestinian refugee camp that was set up
in Lebanon 69 years ago the tents that
you see transformed to a densely packed
concrete jungle many of the rooms or
homes we visited couldn’t get any
sunlight or airflow so mildew was
growing on the walls 11 a family of
eleven was living in a single room and
the narrow alleyways that we took that
were filled with trash were also covered
with exposed electrical wiring 40 people
had died that year that I visited from
electrocution just going to their homes
young people were hanging out in these
narrow alleyways not at school and not
at jobs because the unemployment rate in
refugee camps was at 60% and so kids saw
no hope in going on to get a degree and
despite these terrible conditions the
camp was very peaceful we were walking
around at 11:00 p.m. not concerned for
our safety most refugees the majority
are peaceful but they’re also very
vulnerable and all it takes is one
family crisis you’re the mom of this
young man can get ill and that would
maybe change his mind about accepting an
offer from a radical recruiter who
promises him with medical relief for his
mother or a better future life having
seen that I made higher education my
focus and I started a program with
Malik’s organization Jenna was the first
to join our program we put her profile
online and quickly got her crowd funded
by a group of women who also offered to
mentor her online within no time
Jenna was working with a social
publisher on with a virtual internship
with social publisher in the state
and soon she graduated and she’s been
helping other young women follow in her
footsteps the work that I did with medic
and a number of other organizations
helped a couple of thousand young people
through offering virtual mentorship that
human connection and giving online
internships with a little bit of crowd
funding these people young refugees were
becoming independent but that was a drop
in the bucket
because when the Syrian war broke out it
displaced 11 million people 450,000 of
them were in the university and their
education was disrupted because it was
my place of birth I went to visit a
refugee camp in Lebanon to see what I
could do and nothing I had seen would
have prepared me for the tragedy that
had befallen my fellow countrymen as far
as the eye can see
tents filled the Bekaa Valley and as
many as 8 people were packed in one tent
earning or not earning getting a stipend
of $100.00 a month that wasn’t enough
for a family and so everybody over 12
had to work kids were working in
sweatshops for 12-hour days making
flip-flops professionals accountants and
teachers were now working in farm fields
and factories earning $2 a day the
situation was pretty desperate for most
refugees that I met and the only
connection that young people had to the
rest of the world were their mobile
phones on that same visit I met I met a
young man Syrian from Homs he and his
family took the journey of death on feet
they walked 64 miles from hemp’s to the
Bekaa Valley more people had died than
we’re living in that journey and when
Armen was telling me the story of how he
saw his uncle and cousin killed in a
landmine explosion there was no
expression on his face
it was haunting It was as if he was
talking about somebody else that
expressionless face reminded me of when
I was younger and I had a physical
trauma in order to escape my fear I
disconnected from my emotions but by
disconnecting from fear
I also disconnected from love and all
other emotions that would go on to make
me a normal functioning human being and
it took a very long time for me to be
able to establish that connection again
Armand and the hundred thousand other
Syrians were University aged fled their
countries in hopes of a better life only
to find that there in host countries
that have very expensive universities
and very high unemployment rates they
couldn’t afford to work to pay for their
own education enrollment for Syrians
dropped from 20 percent down to 5
percent in universities and they’re
always told that they’re gonna go back
but the reality is they cannot for
Syrian refugees that’s been over five
years
Iraqis over ten Afghani is over 15 and
Palestinians have been out of their
homeland for over 60 years and this
wasn’t just an Arab refugee problem less
than 1% of refugees worldwide have
access to funding for higher education
so the nagging question that kept me up
at night
is how could we scale the work that we
did with Malik’s organization to support
the 450,000 Syrian youth worldwide
without access to university education
or the 500 million youth who are
impacted by conflict we knew that they
were connected to the world through
their mobile phones and from the work
that we did with Malik we knew that hope
gave them something to look forward to
an internship or a college degree and
with some funding we were able to
support them so along with a group of
coders refugee coders and young people
like Jenna we put together all of these
features in an
now I know that sounds like it’s
oversimplifying the problem but this was
a solution that they came up with they
wanted to connect to the rest of the
world through a social network that was
their own to allow people to see them
read their stories here about their
lives and also to allow these people who
are on the network to offer them
mentorship internships online or on a
day where these people felt sufficiently
caffeinated give up that $5.00 in lieu
of their education EDD is in its infancy
and we’re hoping that we can grow it if
we can get 6000 young people on it and
60 thousand who would support them we
could shut down a refugee camp with your
help we could do a lot more because the
original challenge is how we can fund
the 600 million youth out there living
in conflict and support them to become a
part of a more peaceful world and the
opportunity is first to offer them hope
human connection love and support for
their education and the funding they
need to join peaceful global citizens
are you with me
[Applause]
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