WE CO-CREATE TECH SOLUTIONS
We bring innovators, humanitarians, researchers & social entrepreneurs, both from refugee and local communities, together to create tech solutions together
WE COLLABORATE WORLDWIDE
We work as an open global platform thanks to a worldwide community of volunteers throughout the five continents and through homebuilt platforms such as Basefugees
WE ARE WORKING 99% ONLINE
We have developed a virtual open innovation methodology & deliver programmes in a remote fashion.
OUR STORY
Techfugees was created in September 2015 following a call on Facebook from Mike Butcher, Editor-at-large of TechCrunch in Europe, in response to the picture of Aylan’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach. A few days later, 300 people were brought together in London for a first conference, followed by a hackathon. Many cities and countries across the world (Oslo, Sydney, Paris, Turin) picked up the torch over the following weeks!
THE TEAM
Mike Butcher
Co-Founder and Chairman of Techfugees Foundation
Mike Butcher is Editor-at-large of TechCrunch. Mike has been named one of the most influential journalists in European technology by Wired UK, The Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard. He also founded the annual Europas Awards, the co-working network TechHub and has advised the UK government on tech startup policy. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list of 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.
Raj Burman
Chief Executive of the Techfugees Foundation
Raj joined Techfugees as CEO in November 2020. Fellows of the renowned Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, Raj brings with him a wealth of experiences in various business fields and experienced leadership. His career spans three decades of scaling high-growth ventures across international markets, with specific knowledge of digital innovation, entrepreneurship and philanthropy. In his previous role at Sustain Ventures, Raj applied his philanthropy experience across international impact ventures and corporates supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Prior to that, Raj worked for GS1 as well as led the SME scaleup business accelerator in the United Kingdom for an independent body of the European Commission.
Petra Johansson
Director & Board Member of Techfugees Foundation
Petra Johansson has 20+ years experience from the events industry ranging from sponsorship, media and delegate sales at organisations including IIR Conferences (now Informa Group), Incisive Media, and Financial News. She has been based in London since 1998 and runs events consulting company TwistedTree since 2007, and is also co-founder of 2Pears.
Louise Brosset
Global Community Officer
Louise is the Global Community Manager: she orchestrates Techfugees volunteers worldwide and coordinates operations and programs. She was Program Manager for one of the first #TF4Women Inclusion programs in France and shifted to the international network organizations in 2018. With a background in entrepreneurship and a research assistant in cognitive science, she met Techfugees as she co-founded Black Sheep in 2016, a student association aiming at learning and duplicating best practices from NGOs working with forcibly displaced people to scale innovation. She is based in the sunny city of Montpellier (south of France).
Hiba Abou Haykal
Digital Corridor Program Manager in Lebanon
Hiba Abou Haykal a PHD candidate at University of Saint Joseph- Beirut majoring Sociology- HR & Leadership and certified Life Coach.I have been working as an administrator at the Lebanese University. During the last 11 years. I had the chance to work in different NGOs: Amel Association, Basmeh & Zeitooneh and Arcenciel where a solid experience was built examining closely Syrians Refugees concerns.
During 2012- 2014 had the chance to lead Educational Programs at Amel’s Association in West Bekaa and experienced the difficulties faced by Syrian kids and youth to cooperate with the educational system in Lebanon and the main role was minimizing the gap. In 2016 joined Basmeh & Zeitooneh as Psychosocial Support Coordinator supervising the implementation of Peacebuilding Program in central Bekaa through Playback Theater techniques to support Syrian kids and youth through their traumas resulting from war and integrating in new society. From 2017 till 2019 I had the chance to work as HR Officer & Employee Relations Specialist at Arcenciel responsible for all HR personnel with a scope of inclusion including Syrian Refugees Employees. Furthermore, my PHD topic research “Employee Turnover Phenomenon, Case of NonGovernmental Organizations in Lebanon” is giving me the opportunity to professionalize my research skills and have a direct exposure with NGOs addressing Refugees needs.
Alexandra Kutas
Rapid Emergency Network Coordinator (Ukraine)
Alexandra joined Techfugees in March 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, to coordinate the Rapid Emergency Network launched by Techfugees, a volunteer-led network of whatsapp groups, in 30+ countries, facilitating ground support and tech projects developments for forcibly displaced persons in Europe.
“I’m the world’s first runway model in a wheelchair, public speaker and a co-founder of fashion brand Puffins.My ultimate goal is a world of equal opportunities where people are seen through their professionalism, drive and humanity, but not something which was given without choice.
My work received recognition from The Huffington Post; Daily Mail; CCTV (China Central Television); Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and America’s most popular public radio station, WNYC. I appeared on catwalks on 3 different continents. News about my first runway show at Vozianov show in Kyiv was featured in more than 60 countries around the world. Recently, I received awards from Kyiv Post Top 30 Under 30, and the Chou Ta-Kuan Foundation presented by the president of Taiwan.
At the same time at my early 20s, I saw the price of neglecting mental health in my family and what happens if you are being strong for too long. Being a caregiver has been one of the most challenging and self-discovering experiences of my life.In 2018 I joined mission-led startup incubator program Zinc and moved by myself to London.
Though my whole life I have been breaking down stereotypes unfortunately, there is a still long way to go.”
Richard Hodkinson
Rapid Emergency Network Coordinator (Ukraine)
Richard is a social entrepreneur, political and social scientist, information geek, and changemaker. He has a background in emergency response, technology management, journalism, information media analysis and academics.
He worked in the UN Ebola crisis response, travelling to West Africa to coordinate communications technology to support the international Ebola epidemic response, working for NetHope, and worked on improving collaboration among the partner NGOs, the UN and the governments. He hopes to bring his experience to bear in facilitating collaborations among Techfugees’ community and partners in our efforts to help the Ukrainian people.
He is dedicated to improving the lives of all people, working on equality and transparency both in times of crisis and in the way our institutions organise. As a technology entrepreneur he has founded companies to develop products to counter authoritarian state control and surveillance; to counter corruption and kleptocracy; and to bring more effective strategies to counter conspiracy theories and media misinformation.
Haidar Baqir
Special Advisor
Haidar Baqir holds a Master’s degree in engineering and has been working in emergency telecommunications for the last 18 years. Mr. Baqir had been working with the World Food Programme (WFP). He served in multiple field emergency operations, including Sudan 2004, Lebanon 2006, Somalia 2007, South Sudan 2011, Ebola outbreak response in West Africa in 2014, Nepal following the earthquake, and Yemen in 2015. He also served as part of the Global Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) based in Rome and as Regional IT Emergencies Preparedness and Response Officer for the World Food Programme based in Bangkok, covering the Asia and Pacific region. In his role with Global ETC based in Rome 2015-2017, Mr.Baqir led the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) coordination model project for WFP and the humanitarian response community. His final deployment with United Nations was with the Telecommunications Development Bureau of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) based in Geneva working as emergency telecommunications and climate change coordinator.
OUR ACTIONS
INNOVATION
We support and help the deployment of responsible technology products and services for and with displaced persons across the world since 2015.
INSIGHTS
Techfugees animates discussions and research about ethics and technology in the humanitarian space through conferences, papers and working groups since 2017. Within the collective, these research led us to create open-source and open-data platforms to identify, list & curate tech-enabled solutions empowering displaced people across the world.
INCLUSION
We create and deliver free inclusion programs (4-6months) for refugees to learn digital skills (coding, data analytics, cybersecurity, design...) to land a job in tech since 2018.