How Social Networking Is Helping the Poor in India

Wed, 10/10/2007 - 10:12am — Kevin Lo

From India, the International Herald Tribune reports how a new site called Babajob.com is taking social networking one step further by using online networks to help connect people in Bangalore to jobs, even if the job-seekers lack access to technology.

Using small jobs placement — and incentivised referrals — as a core premise, the service has the potential to grow virally among those who need work the most.

From Babajob.com's Web site:

Most people find jobs through people they know — namely their extended social network — and most employers — particularly when hiring employees that work in the home, would like to hire a person who someone they trust can vouch for.

Babajob and babalife are an attempt to digitize this process to efficiently "get the word out" and importantly provide an incentive for the folks in between an employer and employee to connect people together.

Here’s an example: Let’s say Rajesh is looking for a cook and places an ad with us for Rs 799. After searching on babajob.com, he ultimately decides to hire his uncle’s driver’s sister. Assuming all these folks are on babalife.com, then both Rajesh’s uncle and his driver, will earn Rs 100.

We know that many of the people who might be hired through babajob.com may not have access to a computer or phone, and so their accounts can managed by a friend, relative, NGO or even a cyber-café operator — called a mentor. Again, whenever someone is hired, their mentor earns Rs 200.

Hopefully, social ventures like these can realize their transformative potential to eradicate poverty in the many developing regions of the world.

(Learn how another initiative, BiG Tech, between the India-based NASSCOM Foundation and TechSoup, is helping bring software to NGOs in India.)

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