Author Archives: Devon Franklin

By Maya Sioufi, MIT Technology Review In partnership with several organizations, the NGO hosted a business ideation weekend to support asylum seekers in finding team members and developing business ideas. The event led to the launch of  14 business which the NGO is currently supporting. For September of this year, they plan on hosting a week-long event […]

By Stephen Petrick, Inside Belleville Quinte United Immigration Services is getting ready to be part of a pilot program intended to help Syrian refugees find work in agriculture. The program is being hailed as a great way to help new Canadians find employment and contribute to an industry where there’s a demand for workers. “It is […]

By Kevin Niedermier, WKSU The Partnership for a New American Economy study says in 2014 Ohio’s nearly half a million immigrants earned $15.6 billion, or just over 5 percent of the state’s total. And during a press conference on the steps of Cleveland City Hall, Council President Kevin Kelley called for changes that will help keep more of Northeast […]

Evelyn Harford, Ottawa Citizen Ahmad Altaouil was a successful chef in Syria before his family was uprooted by the civil war four years ago. He lost his restaurant and stability. In February, Altaouil, his wife and their three children flew to Montreal where they met their refugee partner from Wakefield for Refugees, Ramez Chalhoub. Now as a Syrian refugee recently […]

By Maria Teresa Rojas, Alyssa Ross, Devex Impact The scale of the current Syrian refugee crisis has generated significant involvement from private actors, including corporations and individuals. In Germany, where an aging population has resulted in more than half a million unfilled jobs, corporations have called for an overhaul of laws to allow asylum-seekers to […]

By Aaron Klein, Brookings Institution There is strong data to support the claim that the regional Federal Reserve Banks have structural problems in generating diverse leadership and that the lack of diverse leaders has negative repercussions. Federal Regional Bank Presidents are important: they vote to determine the nation’s monetary policy, have significant authority over bank […]

By John Ralston Saul, The Globe and Mail If we are honest with ourselves, we know that immigration and citizenship have never been, at their core, linked to money. Some come with finances – but most have little or none. And we have had a growing number of highly educated immigrants. But what makes our system […]

From the Guardian Information technology student Hussein Shaker had only one year left of university in Aleppo when his studies were cut short by war. Moving to Berlin as a Syrian refugee, he knew nothing about the tech scene or how valuable developers like him were in the city. “It was so boring,” he says. […]

By Desmond Lim, Crunch Network Uber has transformed local transportation in American cities and SpaceX aims to enable Americans to travel to Mars. Oscar Health Insurance makes healthcare more accessible for Americans while ZocDoc simplifies making doctor appointments. What do these innovative companies share in common? They were all founded by at least one foreign-born […]

By Sara McElmurry, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs After decades of economic decline—with the shedding of manufacturing jobs, the Midwest has grown at a rate of less than half the national average over the past 50 years—the region is now experiencing something of a business renaissance. Much of this revival can be linked back […]