At a co-working hub in the trendy Berlin neighbourhood of Kreuzberg, about 25 refugees, mainly from Syria, have gathered together for the introductory session of a three-month course teaching them how to code. Set up by non-profit organisation ReDi School of Digital Integration, from this month around 50 students will start to learn how to build websites and apps while being mentored by technology specialists.

Ammar Alhousaini, 20 and from Syria, is one of the students spending a Sunday afternoon discovering more about the course. Alhousaini, who has been living in Berlin for just over four months, says the coding skills will help him in his ambitions to “study computers at university and make apps and websites in the future”.



ReDi School of Digital Integration, headed by Anne Kjær Riechert, founder of Berlin Peace Innovation Lab, is just one way the global tech community is helping tackle the European refugee crisis, which has seen 4.6 million people flee Syria alone since the outbreak of civil war in 2011, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. From improving the lives of refugees with short necessary fixes to building long-term solutions to encourage integration, entrepreneurs and tech companies are using their talents to create new ideas and build models to help the ongoing crisis.

“Our mission was to find digital scalable solutions to help refugees and continue to work remotely,” says Katharina Dermühl, co-founder of Berlin-based Startup Boat, an initiative that brought together 16 entrepreneurs and tech employees to brainstorm solutions to the crisis on a boat on the Greek island of Samos in the summer. “We talked to people there to find out their needs and realised they were lacking information about the processes in place, which was causing a lot of stress,” says Dermühl, also co-founder of Migration Hub, a co-working space in Berlin that aims to connect startups and entrepreneurs working on solutions to the refugee crisis.

The result of the Startup Boat meeting was First Contact, which provides refugees arriving to Samos with essential information such as where to register and directions to the hospital and attracts up to 12,000 visits a week. In a similar vein, Google has partnered with aid organisations the International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps to launch Refugeeinfo.EU, a mobile site filled with information on accommodation, medical assistance and transport for refugees arriving in European countries such as Croatia, Serbia and Greece.

To help refugees find a safe place to stay, three entrepreneurs in the Netherlands launched Refugee Hero, an Airbnb-style site connecting refugees needing accommodation with people with spare rooms.

In the UK, TechCrunch editor Mike Butcher has brought together tech engineers, entrepreneurs and startups with NGOs and other agencies to help spark new solutions or develop existing ideas through a series of conferences and hackathons, under his non-profit initiative Techfugees. The first event in October led to GeeCycle.org, a platform where people can donate their mobiles to refugees. “The idea is not to take ownership but to let people run with ideas through our network and go off on little projects,” says Butcher. What started as one event in London has sparked a trail of similar events in Oslo, Venice and Warsaw.

Even the White House has called on tech companies to use their skills to help combat the crisis, resulting in responses such as Kickstarter partnering with UNHCR to create a campaign page encouraging donations.

The UNHCR, which has launched a series of innovations with partners such as Airbnb, Google and Vodafone to help accelerate the scaling of solutions, is appreciative of the tech community’s drive to help in the refugee effort. “The UNHCR is very supportive of the recent new phenomena, which is the creation of spontaneous groups and initiatives, to which we provide them with guidance on priority needs and areas for future work,” says Olivier Delarue, UNHCR innovation lead.

But is it the responsibility of tech companies with little experience in this area to help in the spiralling crisis? Some startups believe their quick pace and creativity can help dream up solutions faster than the government and aid agencies ever could. “It’s more important to get started because politics and NGOs are slow tanks,” says Dermühl.

“We believe that this crisis cannot be solved by the governments alone,” argues Refugee Hero co-founder Ayoub Aouragh. “They’re struggling to get all these refugees accommodated, [meaning] some are being dragged from one place to another every week. The solution is to make sure that these people can get on with their lives.”

Delarue’s view is that “engagement has to be done in concertation [cooperation] with the governments and NGOs in order to be addressing the real needs of affected communities”.

Whatever innovative solutions tech companies respond with, it’s important to bring refugees into the process, advises Kjær Riechert. “User involvement in the development phase is essential and we need active collaboration with stakeholders such as ministries, local officials and NGOs to build effective solutions. In the end, collaborative processes are necessary to have a lasting impact.”

Dermühl says tech firms wishing to draw up ideas should first check whether the idea has already been created, rather than duplicating work. A Techfugees Hackpad document asks people to “have a look at other things people are doing, and rather than starting something from scratch consider helping someone else, or better, volunteer for an NGO”.

For some tech companies, the priority has been to look beyond creating short-term fixes to create sustainable, long-term solutions that aid refugees as they settle and start new lives in their new communities. ReDi School of Digital Integration itself was created as a sustainable solution to the ongoing European refugee crisis. “This will help refugees wanting to get a job and become a valuable part of German society,” says Kjær Riechert. “Learning to program is a universal language that they can continue wherever they are.” The initiative is also a win-win for Berlin, which is desperate for talented developers, says Riechert.

“The idea is moving away from [just being] how can we help with the crisis at the moment, to how are we going to use tech to help integrate former refugees into society, help them settle and get jobs and educate them,” says Butcher. “We’re looking at ways to turn this tragedy into an opportunity – and not just for them.”

Delarue says the sustainability of solutions should be paramount in helping refugees.

“This is particularly important in the context of the protractedness of the refugee crisis in which political solutions aren’t found and therefore drag on for years.” He says on average, refugees will be displaced for 22 years.

As politicians worldwide argue over the resettlement of refugees, a joined-up effort of the innovative tech community with local governments, NGOs and those affected continues to be the best solution in developing innovative tech tools to help tackle the ongoing crisis.



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