 I'm glad to see people are talking and getting to know each other and exchanging cards, okay? That's also part of the exercise while we're here today. Thank you for making it back in time. Are you all set for the afternoon session? Are you ready? Great, lots of excitement in the room clearly. All right, so we'll want to kick off this session. Like we said, we'll have a panel session that is coming up. But before that, I'd just like to bring up Fabian again to set the scene for us and then we'll be good to go. Turning from lunch and things of you who've newly joined us for joining us on this session that we're having right now, our panel discussion on how to make online gig work more sustainable in Kenya. And I would love to seize this opportunity and just very, very briefly speak to you about our project, what this is about. My name is Fabian Stefani. I'm an economist and senior data scientist at the University of Oxford and a research affiliate at the Humboldt, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. You should remember this name because we are jointly together with our colleagues from the GIZ here, the Digital Transformation Center, organizing this event, the discussion that we had earlier today and it's right now. What is this about? This is about the internet. The Alexander Humboldt Institute is an internet institute. It's the first internet institute in Germany actually founded in 2011 and in these last 11 years it's been growing significantly with the task of explaining our lives, how our individual and collective behavior online shapes our social, economic and political world. Right now 11 years into the existence of our institute we're very proud to have 70 people working for us, hundreds of alumnus around the world. But why are we here? What are we doing here? In collaboration with the GIZ we're working on a project called SET, Sustainability, Entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation and this is happening not only here in Kenya but we're particularly happy to be here in Kenya discussing on the labor markets but it's also happening in many, many other places around the world so our colleagues are continuing their journey in a few days to Vietnam and Indonesia talking about green entrepreneurship. They have been to Kosovo in the past. I think my microphone is not working anymore but I'll try to talk a bit louder. So this is really a trip all around the world and it's all around about digital transformation and sustainability and entrepreneurship and we usually do this in a very collaborative way with the partners on the ground, with policy partners, with the GIZ, the Digital Transformation Center here and also gathering your knowledge like we did in this morning session and now relying on the expertise of people, of experts talking to us on the panel. What will they be talking about? They'll be talking about online labor market. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of online labor markets let me try to enlight you with this. This is probably one of the most famous statements of the Digital Age made by Marshall McLuhan and this is actually a very old statement. If you read it, it sounds oddly familiar speaking about the global village, speaking about the digital connectivity that's uniting us all in one special place but this quote is from 1962. So this is 60 years old, what a visionary man, right? And if we think about it, we're probably very much reminded of this global village when we look at the palm of our hand at our iPhones, when we talk on WhatsApp on Skype, be it to business partners, be it to friends, they can be in the next room but they can also be on the other side of the planet actually. So I think it was a very visionary statement. This specific year and this year in 1962 there was also another revolutionary thing happening that little people know about. I didn't know about this. A company called EDS in Texas, in Dallas, Texas in the United States starting with the revolutionary business concept and their business concept was to calculate balance sheets of other companies but the companies were not in the same building. They were also not in the same town. In fact, they were not in the same part of the country. They could have been New York, they could have been Detroit, they could have been in Los Angeles but the trick about this was they were so effective in doing this because they were only doing this. They were only doing the balance sheet calculations that they saved a lot of money for these companies and some of these companies are very famous companies and it's fair to argue that they became so famous and so rich like General Motors for example because of this concept, because of a combination of what we now know as outsourcing and offshoring. So a supplier does something for you, for your company and this supplier might not be in the same room or in the same city, this supplier might actually be on the other end of the world where production costs, wages might be lower and this double cost cutting paradigm over the last 60 years since he made this visionary statement over the last 60 years this double cost cutting paradigm has started to dominate the world as people, bookkeepers from Bangalore work for accounting firms in Boston or as software developers for example in La Ora are working for tech companies in London and it has accumulated in something like this. This is a picture of the global online labor market. So this is a market where people can buy services from all around the world. Again, where somebody who's looking for a company logo be designed in London for her startup, goes online and at the tip of her fingers with a click of a mouse finds a logo designer for example here, in Nairobi, here in Kenya and that's what we're seeing on this map, you know. Services floating around the world from blue cities where they are bought to red cities where the workers are and if you have a close look, unfortunately for various reasons that we'll be discussing there's a little going on in Sub-Saharan Africa, the experts are going to take care of explaining this but you see Kenya is actually one of the spots that you see on the map so there is something going on. So was McLuhan right? Did the world turn into a global village? Can everybody participate? Well, this map shows us a different picture and also if you dig deep into research and colleagues that are talking know much more about this, we see it has much more been a very uneven market, a strongly polarized market with big cleavages between urban centers and broken provincial cities with big cleavages between those workers who have great skills that are demanded by everybody around the world and those workers that might be stuck in very repetitive precarious and socially insecure jobs. A lot of challenges you can guess and I think this is the right time to hand over to our colleagues who will be talking about these challenges. Thank you so much. And we do, we reverse the trick. Bonnie, it's up to you again. The mic is yours. Thank you. Thank you so much. So yeah, so we're moving to this other where we'll have a very interesting position here. But before we do that on the seat that you have there was a piece of paper that had a program, right? On that program, there's a QR code thing, okay? I'm gonna wait for you until you get your phone out and follow this. We have an audience that is joining us online in this conversation. Obviously there's lots and lots of people who are interested in here, who couldn't be here and really just keeping up with the fact that we're talking about an online economy. There are lots and lots of people who will be joining us online. So this will afford them a chance to participate in this, but also it will give you a chance to raise your comments, raise your questions. I will afford you a chance to ask questions to the panelists that will be here. However, that would be a good starting point. Yeah, so if you could just scan it right through. There's a space there where you can put in your questions and comments. You can choose to be anonymous, that's okay. But if you choose also to indicate your name and what you do, we perfectly agree with that. And the whole point is you don't have to wait until the end of the conversation to interrupt. You can have the impressions there and we'll be picking them in the course of this conversation. Is that okay? Has everyone gone through to using that? Okay, great. So let's get this show on the road. I will be inviting the next set of people to join me on stage. First off, I'm so glad that we're talking online in digital matters and we have quite a number of ladies represented in this panel. First off, allow me to bring on stage Dr. Shiko Gitao who is the Chief Executive Officer at QHALA. I hope I said that correctly. At KALA, my apologies. All right, joining Shiko on stage is Elisabeth Ponjar. She's a Program Manager for the Africa Center for Women in ICT. You know it's okay to clap, right? And finally, you had him on stage before. He presented a very detailed paper. Let's have Professor Tom Kwanya from the Technical University of Kenya. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being part of this. This is really exciting for me because now we're getting into the nitty-gritty of this. We're really getting to understand our markets and really getting to figure out what really is our role and I think when we started in the morning, we opened by saying, how do we find what our role is and how do we best play in that space? But just to kick us off, I'll start with Dr. Shiko first because I massacred your business's name, so I'll give you a chance to tell us a little bit about what KALA does in this space. Sorry, I'll ask you to use the audio microphone. The microphone? This is like Zoom, yeah? You can't find the mute button. I knew him. Yeah, you can do it. So KALA is a digital innovation lab. We're very specific in calling ourselves a lab because our goal is to be able to continuously learn. We, okay, thank you. We provide support, advisory, and sometimes program management services on anything digital across the country. So we have a research team that works around policy, program, and product research. So we help people who are trying to come into the continent and want to build a product. We help them do, from user research and authority research to actually user testing. We do policy research, and this is extremely digital age where there's lots of gaps in policy, you have no idea, until you start doing something that is regulated or not regulated and perhaps are thinking around it. And program we work with many, many, especially donor organizations who are trying to think of a program that they need to produce into the country and the country or continent, and we help them design the programs and sometimes program management. And we have a robust data science team. So if you guys, the Kenyans, last year you had the president saying that the experts told me. You remember that statement? So we were the experts. Yeah, it's us guys. You blame us for closing down Nairobi. I remember that actual decision is something we worked on for two nights without sleep because you need to map out what does Nairobi actually entail and we use mobility data showing if you left, can come and went to the farthest place that people move to where is the farthest place. So it was not just a decision, it was an economic decision of making sure that Nairobi actually operates if there's a shutdown. So we use data science to inform policy, program and product and our biggest work is on COVID and now we actually provide support for the Ministry of Health in terms of like responding to other incidences around health. Then we have engineering, so we build everything, platforms, mobile apps and stuff. And then we have a venture studio where we work with subject matter experts to respond to Africa's most persistent problem. So that is color in two seconds. Thank you. And I just wanted that to be clear because we talk about people playing in this space and I think it's important to have actual real companies who are involved in this space. So let's just zoom out a little bit and look broadly at Kenya Prof. In the morning you gave us a quick look at the Kenyan market, what roles are available, who plays where, if you could just put a really quick picture of what's working for Kenya as far as online jobs are concerned. Thank you. Yeah, true. We looked at the landscape of the gig economy in Kenya, trying to paint a picture of it and beginning for the numbers, as we said in the morning, about 7,000 but there's a bit of a discrepancy about that number because this was a figures of 2019. And of course, from where I see it as an academic, we look at what we call credit resources that we can cite. So if there's none yet, we cite the latest which in this case was 2019. And in between also in the literature I mentioned in the morning that we also saw that there are certain explanations putting this figure at a very high point, about a million or so. And so what we're saying is that probably the real figure lies somewhere in between. But what that means is given screen. It means gig work is really in Kenya. The numbers don't be standing. And again, there was also the indication that numbers are growing. And in the discussion, we also realized that in the recent past, the numbers have grown in response to COVID, the challenges that we did. And digital spaces being looked at as the other alternative or in the absence of physical interactions. And most of the gig workers are doing all manner of things on-site, off-site, I mean online and on-site. And a lot of them are from our data work in the retail, in the retail getting e-commerce, retail and hotel sales that they do on platforms, selling products, selling services on behalf of either local companies or internet companies. In some cases, you know, thing as selling merchandise. And again, though, the next... Sorry, use my... Sorry about that. The next most popular, if I may call it, is transport and shared ride. And again, the numbers are very high. And looking at the bigger picture in terms of who is involved, in terms of gender, most of them are men, about 80% and the female gender, the other balance. And looking at age, again, the larger majority of them from 35 years downwards. For the ladies, most of them just the majority at under 25 and a little more up to 35, but none above 35. In terms of education, we saw most of them are high schoolers, I mean people who have high school qualification and nothing more. In terms of length, most of them work for, I've worked for three years and below, and not many have gone beyond five years. In our conversations during a lifetime with one of, I think, Anthony, he picked out that there were actually two from our data who had worked for 11 years. And we just want to find out how they maintained, you know, that length of time because the majority of them are working for under three years. And then most of them view themselves about 80%, 68%, sorry if I mix up the percentages, and viewing themselves at full time employees. But on the other hand, the platform owners view them as autonomous independent contractors who get paid for what they do for the period that they work. And of course, many issues that can emerge out of that would go into conflicts and stuff. In terms of contracts, a large majority of them have contracts, but about 20% do not have contracts. And again, that means a lot in terms of such discrepancies. If they don't have contracts, then how they engage. Many challenges in terms of regulation, of course, are trying to balance the needs of the workers, because many of them go into gig work to earn a living and also to put, in fact, some say to put food on the table for their families. And that's why they view themselves, because that's all they do. But on the other hand, you know, it's just a side hustle for some people. And so it's important that we're able to balance that here is a group of people working to earn a living and put food on their table. And so should we stop at just being, enabling them to just put food on their table? Or should we think about that work, you know, making sure it isn't, it is dignifying and that their rights are not violated? And on the other hand, platform owners who are likely business people interested in the bottom line making profit and trying to minimize costs at whatever level and be able to reduce their costs of production, in this case, production of wealth. And so yeah, so there need to be a balance which is able to take the needs of the platform owners and also the gig workers that are working through the platforms. And that can likely come through regulation. Now that's the conversation that we're inviting you to participate in, you know, what kind of regulation should this be? Is it self-regulation? Is it government-dominated regulation? Or what kind of regulation? But at the end of the day, it seems that that could be the mechanism through which we can realize socially just gig work. Right, very interesting set of highlights that you've put out there. And I like the fact that we're asking the question that should gig work move from sustainability or putting food on the table to innovation to a bit more specialties? And we'll get back to that, but also you talked about 80% of these people being men and women are left out. And Elizabeth, one job is to ensure that we have a lot more women in this space. Elizabeth, when you hear such numbers, what goes through your mind, especially in respect to the work that you do? We're not meeting with microphones. Can we just have a different one? Go for it, yeah. Okay, thank you for that question. And I'm seated here to talk from the implementation perspective. We have discussed so much of what is expected of these gig workers, the regulations and all that. But I'm seated here having implemented such project for quite a long time. So when we talk about this data in balance, when we talk about the policies, when we talk about what is expected of the gig workers, I think my share then will be more informed from discussions that we have had in the morning. In the African Center for Women in ICT, an ICT for development at our main work is to scale the online workers. So when we talk about the scaling of online workers, someone would be interested to know how do we get them? Who are these online workers? Someone would want us to unpack it. Who is this that we are talking about? And what is the process? Because there were some questions that came during the group discussions. Or someone asking, how do I get the platform owners? When we talk about upwork, where is this upwork? Where am I supposed to get it? So that's the work that we do on day-to-day basis to ensure that our youths, I'll talk about women later, but allow me first to focus on the need for skills because we talk about having a market, but the product must be there. So when we're talking about Kenya being number four, being all these, the question that we come back to is, are youths skilled to take up those opportunities? So the main work that we do with the support of UKDAP is to ensure that these youths are skilled. And in terms of scaling, we understand they are coming from different levels. So we'll start scaling from the basic digital literacy level. And in basic digital literacy level, we are looking at you who have not interacted with the computing devices. And please, online work is not computer packages. We'll get back to differentiate that later. But you who completed form four, maybe you went to a certain T-fait, but you have not interacted with computing devices, you joined the digital literacy scaling by doing the basic and interacting with those computing devices. Don't look at computing devices from a phone because some of these are underserved, they are vulnerable. So look at it from a smartphone, not from a laptop or a desktop. We'll go to the second level of intermediate digital scaling and that is what we have been discussing throughout this day. Because in intermediate digital scaling, it's someone who have moved from the basic. When you move from the basic and you go to the intermediate, you are looking at an opportunity to make money online. So it's just not about having the skill itself, but how are you making incomes? How are you improving your livelihoods using the intermediate? And that is where we bring the online workers and so many other career parts, the data science, data analytics, the computer science, all that falls under that intermediate digital scaling. There is the level that some of these people go and that is the advanced and advanced level we are talking about the solutions. So my main concern is that the intermediate where we have skilled and most of these digital freelancers that is where they are in. When we scale you, what is it that we are skilling you? We are now skilling you to work online and we are looking at you having an account, you knowing the different platforms that are there. You can do all that, but you don't even know how you'll be paid. So those are the areas of interest for us who do the digital skilling. I must say that after co-filling resources in this case means you being in a position to do self-study. We use what we call the MCT platforms, a platform where you will access all the resources that you need. And as a young lady who has been busy cleaning the house doing all that and you only have one hour, you might not fit in our factual trainings. So you are forced to do the self-study. So we take all of that to ensure that you will access the resources just like someone who went for a physical training or someone who had a team's training or a factual training. You'll get an opportunity to train through a platform with the time. But that actually took place in the whole of 2020 and part of 2021. And considering that now COVID cases have gone low, we have seen that interest. I want to finalize and say that skilling is not enough. So in all our projects, I showed the presentation at the end of the morning session. We do not only rely on just that training itself. There's what we call the hard holding. Look at this person who have been skilled for a month or two or whichever period that you have been skilled. Yes, you have made a very good profile. You have opened an account, but you really need someone to closely work with you. So the project does not add with the skilling, but there's the mentorship component and there's also the linkage to placement partners. I'll talk a bit maybe later on the placement partners. Allow me to get to that later, thank you. No worries. So quite a few things that you highlighted that I want us to talk about. And I'll build this from what Prof said. Give us a profile of what kind of jobs are there and we looked at Kenya ranking highly when it comes to writing jobs. And you've also talked about some of the skills required here basically to Prof's opening statement. You basically need like a high school diploma. Bex the question on sustainability. If 80% were how sustainable are these jobs in five, 10 years? Is our diversity and this diversity and this I'll start Prof and then Shiko is our lack of diversity a threat to the sustainability of this industry? Lack of diversity. Yes, most of the work that was done as you said is likely low level in terms of expertise. Of course there are those others that are at a very high level as well. But you also saw the platforms, you saw that most of them both and all these likely international organizations. And the issue then was is it possible that we could diversify in terms of alternatives that we give not just the platforms but also the jobs, the categories of jobs that are there. And of course that links very well to what you've been talking about capacity building and we should go beyond just a normal digital literacy into employability, the way we talk about employability. Looking at the kind of jobs that are there and the kind of skills, especially specialized skills that will be required so that we go beyond the basics that the majority of them do. Like for a rideshare, all that you need is to know how to drive, isn't it? That's all that is required. And in fact, you may even not need a high school certificate for that. But is that where we want this kind of people? Because again, we mentioned the income for that level is about 10,000 to 30,000 Kenya shillings monthly, which again is also inconsistent. Sometimes it can even go below that. And so that kind of work, even if people are committed, even if there are opportunities there, is it the kind of work that we want, particularly the youth to do and things like that. So my view is that we need to diversify the platforms and the jobs, the kind of jobs that can be done. And a lot of awareness need to be created. And in the morning we talked about exposure so that people get to know some of these jobs and even prepare themselves to be able to work in the gig economy. Something else also which is important is the perception of gig work, which is not very good to a large extent, where it's just the stopgap as I wait to find a job. So I'm considering myself jobless if I'm working in the gig economy until I get a job. So it means that even the level of commitment is rather low in terms of even trying to build myself to advance with my skills and all. So because I'm viewing it, I'm just holding on to this for this period in the interim as I look to get a job. So it's important that we as a country work through this with the stakeholders and all. We call it gig work. We call it part from livelihoods. Because we realize gig work is a very limiting definition academically to what this space actually looks like. Can you hear me? Could you boost Shiko's mic, please? Okay. You can hear? Yes. It's very limiting to what this space looks like. So when I'm hearing his number, I'm thinking, some of these, they're not what we are seeing and being reflected from our own research. And Prof, I'll give you a research so you can cite us. It could be so nice. It's been a while since we actually did like the proper academic papers, but we can say that it's published work. So I want to just paint the picture of what we understand as platform livelihoods from our end here. There are two types of platform livelihoods. There's algorithm driven platform livelihoods and social media driven platform livelihoods. The numbers that are tracked are the algorithm based platform livelihoods. So what Prof said was right on the Ubers, the boards, the artworks. We can track them because we can, I love you to give me that mark for me. The one that is strange. Because you can easily see who is the seller, who is the buyer, and it's easy to track. So those ones, I mean, even Prof's numbers were actually nice. In 2019, they were saying there's about 40,000 of those. And then he started digging, yeah? There is 10 multiples of those, even in those algorithm ones. Because when you get a job, you have a telegram account. So I go on to artwork, I get a job. In my telegram account, I say, who can do this job? Yes, then I hire four or five other people. We do this job under me. We submit, I cash in, I pay all of you. That is the modus of Rwanda, yeah? I just always say like, this is the dark web and the deep web. Telegram is the deep web, yeah? Because that's where most of the stuff that is done. So there is that, we call it hidden hierarchy, yeah? Where there is one person and there's these other group of people who are working under them. Even in Uber, you know, in Kenya, when you talk about Matatu's, we talk about Scots, yeah? When I get a Matatu a vehicle, then I do Scots, yeah? I give my friend or my cousin who's trying to be a driver, they go Scots and they earn something apokatikati when I'm busy eating lunch. Even in Uber, they have Scots. Okay. So and those are the numbers that are not actually counted in the outside the algorithm, right? So that is one factor to put in mind when you are doing these numbers. Then I'll come to the numbers that actually have been put out there. Number two is the social media driven gig work, yeah? And this is where the women come in. Social media driven gig work is work that is done primarily on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Telegram, yeah? It's work that you will never see or able to count. So as guys, what we did is we embedded ourselves in, I think I joined like 15 groups, my colleagues joined another 20. So cause we're just joining these groups to try and count what is happening in these groups? Oh my goodness. The amount of trade of services and products that happens on WhatsApp is outstanding. And you know, it is encrypted even. So we're talking even to WhatsApp people, even them, they don't know. So we're giving them this data, they're thinking, actually what, yeah? So when you're thinking about gig work, so we say, we have this saying in our team is, Africa is 2080 everything, 20% in formal economy, 20% formal economy, 20% this, 80% that. Even in the gig work, there's 20% that we can count. 80% we cannot count. And this is a cross board. So we've done this research in Nairobi and outside Nairobi. We've got all the way to Kitale. Even we tried getting those four boys, you know those ones, the ones that call and say, my child, your child and the teacher sent me 500 more. Those ones, they're very smart by the way. So we've tried going to access them cause they are gig workers and you understand their mindset and how they do work. So that is just a response to some of the data cause I thought it is important to clarify some of these things, cause we can have a perception cause this thing is huge. So that's number one. Number two is women. Most of these women do not go and sign up on Upwork. Yeah? The level of effort on board on Upwork is just too much. Yeah? So they will be paid. They're doing excellent, amazing work. Yeah? But there's this guy, Bonnie, he said, ah, Bonnie, I'm the guy. You go and register an account and you have like your sister, your cousin, their friends doing all the work and submitting even all this writing work. Yeah? So this is an accounted for data that is actually out there. So there's a lot of women who are unaccounted for in the gig work. They work in that, I call it deep web. I come to dark web cause there's back web also in gig work. There's that one. And I agree with Prof's numbers in terms of age, age. It's under the age of 35. So if you, if you claim you are millennial you might just slightly make it but it's mostly a Gen Z thing. Let me just jump in before we go to the dark web because in the morning we got a question from Charles I think who was asking that if you look at some of the official data that we have, it looks like it's a very small percentage in comparison to the existing jobless numbers across. And he was questioning, is there a need to even start conversations about regulating this space? But then what you're saying is that these numbers are actually there. They're just not on the official data points, right? And so which then is a great segue to now that we know of this 80% that exists there and is actually trading, does it give enough voice to say could we have regulation in this space? One of those people who has a love hate relationship with regulation because what we don't want to is curb the growth of this sector. Because regulations, especially premature regulation might curb it, yeah? Might curb what could be possibly life-changing opportunities for millions of young people across Africa, millions of young people across Africa who actually are benefiting from this. You have people who are hairdressers and they're all doing writing jobs, graphic design, coding. Somebody emailed me today and said, oh, I've started doing coding. Can you send me some links? And this is somebody who is a beautician. So we don't want to regulate prematurely. We want the sector to give us another five years for each to grow. However, that is why the love hate relationship comes in. What we need to regulate is on social protection, yeah? Social protection is very important. So these kids are making crazy money. Like, I wanted to come to the deck, let me just talk a little bit about the dark web. So the dark web is for a little bit skilled, more skilled, not a little bit, more skilled gig workers. So these are developers, a software engineers, a data scientist who would rather work there than work for Google, literally, yeah? They're earning $8,000 to $10,000 a month. They are many. Even somebody in our team left our job to go and work there. You succumbed to the dark web. They just succumbed to the dark web. And they buy their nice Audi, nowadays our store is not in Subaero, it's Audi's. It's my Audi, okay. So they buy their nice Audi and are living somewhere in clean money and they're having the best time of their life. So these, all these clusters, and what is the word? Hierarchy of gig workers. So yes, there is the guy who is making 10K a month, yeah? And these Uber drivers that we need to actually work with in terms of regulation to actually get out. But there's these other hierarchies here that we need to find what skills do they need to actually grow them. And some of them don't actually want employment. We've talked to many of them, they don't want. So yes, there's regulation, but not premature regulation that is actually needed. I had another point, I'm looking at it. Okay, as you come. Women, women. Okay, great. Women. So I heard what she was saying. So we've just launched two weeks ago a study on women and the gig economy and the platform livelihoods. And if you read it, you'll see one of the biggest hurdles that women have to go through in the online space is online bullying. Like what we have done as Africa is taking our bad behavior offline, online. No, I'm serious. There's this, so there's a very special category of gig workers called influencers. You know it's an actual job these days. Yeah. Between 2018 and now it's become an official job. So we're talking to this influencer and she was telling me that they were given a gig, yeah? How in a male colleague? So they are doing things. Socials getting out of hate, whatever, trolling Twitter is madness. And she was just complaining and then she was telling her colleague, her colleague was like, what's the matter? Me, I'm not having that. Then she said, come, sit. That's my TL. Even him, he was in shock. And then she said something powerful, stuck with me. It says my TL is my TL and your TL is your TL. How people react to me as a woman is very, very different for how people react. You know, chapati misdressed. She's on Twitter, please follow her by her chapatis. She's amazing, we love her. She's one of, she's not the influencer, she's one of our respondents. And she said, when she said that business, it was just her gender that was double clicked. There's some other guy who was making funny chapatis. They didn't have a problem with her. But the moment she said that chapatis dirty, Bob, they said chapatikwani metengeden is on a gold. You know, but that is the standard cost of chapatis if you want nice chapatis. But it is just because of women. So we are in those bad behaviors that we have offline, we've taken online. So women actually, it's not they don't want or they can't, they're just afraid. The mental toll, the mental toll of just being online is just too much. Right, you've brought in interesting bits that are just like Elizabeth to peek. Elizabeth, while we are now on the question of regulation and whether or not it's time for it, do you see regulation? Do you see regulation as a solution to some of the issues that women face in the online job market? Is there a role for regulation to play in protecting women? Well, I'm just listening to the other two panelists and I'm thinking ahead my back. Can you regulate something that we have not fully researched on? She's bringing very good, you know, from his presentation and what she's now sharing. I'm wondering when we are talking about regulations, I think it should be informed with data. It should be informed by so many other things. So when we are talking about regulations at this particular moment, my concern is what is it that we'll be basing on? We seem not even to know how many gig workers we have. We are not so sure of how much money this industry is making. So I think we need to first put up so many things together for last then to talk about regulations. Something important for us is what has been shared here and what we have reached out to the young women that we have. When we talk about these young women, remember they come to gig work because they are employed. So someone is making some 20 or 30,000 as a certain clerk in a certain law firm, but that 30,000 is not enough but you have some two, three hours that you can do your writing. So most of the people that we have, they are employed. So when we start in quotes killing something in the name of regulation, something that we do not even have adequate information, are we doing the right thing? Is it possible for us to put everything together and then we start talking about this regulation? So it's important first to do much more before now we go to what we might be discussing today. But I also want, Shikoha has raised in form of the online, it's something that we are dealing with. We have in this digitally launching, there's something that we are doing in the creative space, digital content creation. And in terms of training, we are doing audio-visual podcasting and flogging and photographing because we have realized that it's also in form of livelihoods to the young women. And what she's talking about is so real. Any person who would want to go to skilling for our youths and target the digital content creation, it just doesn't start with a skilling bit. There's so much that you need to do in terms of the industry exposure. There's so much that you need to do, even after it might be in form of psychosocial support because what she's telling is real, it's something that most of our young women have. They're very good in this digital content creation but when it comes to posting it in the social media by evening, whatever they'll have faced, despite how good whatever you did is, whatever you'll have faced will make you take two or three steps back. So it's not something that we just start by skilling. We have to do so much of the background check, bring so many of these influencers to talk to our young women but let's use the word disaster expert because Dr. Lee seems to be uncomfortable with influencers. We bring so many of these industry experts to tell them what to expect but also to see how best as an organization can we build on this skill. So when we talk about this regulation, this online harassment, have we had on it? Have we dealt with it? I think there's so much more that needs first to be done before we think about the space of regulation. Thank you. Okay, great. So I really like all the points that are coming out because they're making my work really easy. Prof, I would like your viewpoint on the question of regulation but if you would direct that especially towards the owners of this platforms, right? So if you're saying great, perhaps not time to regulate this space, perhaps we need a little bit more time and data but is there space for regulation especially in respect to the owners of some of these platforms? Actually, when you're talking about regulation at least from this, it's actually both ways. It's not just that you are regulating the platforms as it were or you know, because what actually comes to mind when you think regulation and when you think of the government, you think about tax. You're thinking about restrictions. You're thinking about don'ts. Yeah. But that's really... That's a product of lack of information. I mean, if you look at Uganda, the solution was let's tax everybody who's doing anything online. So is that telling us that even the government or the regulators at B don't have enough information? To a large extent here. I agree with that to a large extent and the issue particularly in the context of this paper that we're talking about is justice to the workers. Ensuring that they're able to get the best out of something decent, something dignifying, and something that is just. Of course, the elements that we've been talking about right from the master disciple and the accounts that are a broker accounts, if I may call them. Because to a large extent, how do you tell if what I got, maybe of course I'll get my cuts as they say in Kenya, I'll get my cuts. And you'll find that by cuts, at the end of the day you end up with 10% of what came out. It's unjust. That's what we're talking about. It's not control of the government for purposes of tax. Because again, there has to be something before you tax it. How do you tax what perhaps it doesn't even exist? In terms of... I lose the other point. But in terms of the numbers, do you think we'll ever be able to account for everyone? I doubt. I doubt. It's not really possible. So we may have to just make do with what we can justifiably get and just go on. The other point was about the platform owners. In relation to regulation. Yes, and that's where the difficulty is. Of course you've seen in Kenya recently there was something about the taxi drivers and the court saying that they should be registered and all and you saw the kind of things that are there. I think the court is still pending in court after an appeal. And so it would be difficult. But in my view, if it were possible, in my view, I would have some sort of regulation. Some form of regulation. In the worst case, call it self-regulation. Certain codes of conduct or expectations that are concrete, are binding, and that can be measured again. So some sort of audit could regularly or internally be done to say that you say that you do one to three, but here are the facts. They are like the opposite. But at the very far end, of course it's the government. Register with us before you can do anything. And I think that's where the tougher one to achieve. Right. And that's an interesting point because we are saying and Prof. said you talked about just dignified and fairness. And Elizabeth talked about protecting the women in this space. So let's talk about how do we do this. We have lots and lots of numbers. Most of them undocumented. Prof. suggesting perhaps self-regulation could be a thing. Is there a possibility of collective action? So can these people get together in some sort of a union that will then advance for their interest? Chico, from the work you do and the markets that you look at, is this a viable solution? So I will highlight one of the work. This is work that you do. We actually do a piece of work called Fair Work with Oxford University and it's actually powered by not sponsored by GIZ. And it is called Fair Work because it is an assessment of different platforms across the world and comparing how looking both at the platform side which is self-reported. So we go to little, we check how do you operate? How do you treat your workers? What policies do you have in place to protect your workers? Like what is in place from a corporate point of view that you have that we can say that there is fairness and dignity of the worker and protection experience for women? On the other hand, we apply this same assessment with workers. We take random of random workers and apply the same, we say we don't have this. We apply this and we say we compare the two answers and say here they march, here they don't march. Here they march, here they don't march. And when they don't march, we go back to them and say these and these and these points it seems to be a bit of not understanding each other what's happening in this place. And we publish this twice a year. So we published one early in the year and it's coming in December, so look out for it. If you google Fair Work, you'll find a beautiful article that was done by City then on that work where we ranked like Kenyan platforms. So that is one way of doing it and Fair Work is doing an amazing job in doing this because now like in Kenya when we publish the first one a few platforms called us and said how did you come up with those results? How come us guys are last? And we're like, yeah, this is the data we have. This is not us, we just didn't choose your data, this is the data we have on you from your workers and so this year they improved. So it is just being a big brother, unfortunately. Number two, I like the work, what the proper has talked about in terms of putting associations and unions together. We are working with an association here and it's called Online Professional Workers Association of Kenya. That's what it's called, Upwork. So we're working on Upwork and we're working with them to empower them as an organization to be able to work for their teams because we realized after several rounds of Fair Work and there's another piece of work I can't actually talk about that we worked with platforms we realized platforms will not do much, bottom line they want a profit, whatever it takes. So what we can do is empower the workers themselves to actually be able to achieve for their own rights and being justice and how do you do that is through association. I'm so sad that Billy is not here because we've been working with Billy for the past two years as well. It's working with these unions and associations to empower them and give them capabilities to be able to actually achieve the rights and the goals and the voice of the worker is actually hard. Which is the most important thing here because if the worker's voice you can do all the policies and stuff but if the worker's voice is not hard at the highest position making place as possible it will not be done. The third thing in January look out for reach. We are going to be releasing another framework while Fair Work is great it only covers platforms here we are releasing another framework for the social media on the 80% we call them the 80%. They are not accounted for, they are not hard but they have problems in all these groups so eventually we showed our identity and said we are doing this work what can we put in place just how do you do this with this framework we've already started talking to people like Facebook and say okay we are doing this piece of work what do you guys think? We have a tool to show you as Facebook these are things that you can put in place on Twitter to protect their women. So you remember for bigger platforms or for platforms generally shaming is a good way of getting them in line we are shaming, let's call them awareness. Okay we will go with awareness we are telling this is what your users are saying about you can you just pull up your socks just a little, oh this is how your users are using your platform why don't you add extra features so by doing that you are showing them that you need to add value to your customer. Right still exploring on the whole idea of collective action as a tool for sustainability Elizabeth your organization is in some shape or form collective action because you are looking at the affairs of women in ICT are there lessons that we can borrow from that that probably ghost writers or tech developers or software developers can borrow in the way that your organization is organized and mobilized so that people can have a bigger voice to address their interest there are several best practices that I think we can share and I have shared a few of them but basically in terms of the platform owners we can only do as much the best practices for us will go to the workers themselves the gig workers but very limited to what we can take to the platform owners the one of the challenges that you might face is and the members of the worker can confess to this it's very hard for these young ladies to disclose the exact amount of money that they are earning I think that's a challenge that every other person who is online work faces so when you ask everyone they all earn between 10 to 30,000 I know of several cases who are making over 50,000 but I think that's a bracket that we have been in for such a long time so when you go back and talk about these best practices they need to be paid this much they need to have the social protection put in place and then you go back to the people that you are defending and you are realizing oh they don't earn as many more as this I'm saying this because I started by saying that there are some placement partners that we work with one of the placement partners they pick young women and they pay between 24 to 26 hours but one of the things that I like about that placement partner is that they define in terms of hours you can't work beyond 40 hours in a week because another thing I don't know how to do this one is most of the online workers fight themselves working either during he's looking at me and if I say that I know he'll call me okay most of them fight themselves working during the day I said you are clock in a law firm somewhere but at night you are doing the online work so there is this placement partner that we have worked with and clearly you can only work 40 hours in a week and I saw that as a good practice despite paying very little mainly because most of our young women overwork you are working in several platforms you are not working in one you are looking for gigs everywhere so that at least you can make a living but now when I ask you how much you are earning you are only reporting one gig in one platform but not all the other platforms so the other bit that we have done in terms of the best practices is what had talked about the hard holding bit which goes a bit also on a apprenticeship she defined it differently when she said someone picking so much work in form of a studio and then you employ this number of people but you pay very many more so I think we can try to work with the he talked about the masters that big person to see how best can this person also take care of these other workers but most of these things I must say I think there is so much to be put together. I move to the audience I know there is quite a few questions and I like to talk about steel sustainability let's talk about the sort of contracts that we have here you mentioned about the working of people you have talked about the time difference now that most of the clients are in a different time zone most of the people are desperate to get jobs so they settle for any kind of contract some people are under qualified for the kind of contracts they sign up for and so they do not deliver if you could start with you it was a picture of how these sort of negotiations look like and in your view what can we do to improve them okay good so allow me to take another step back I'm sorry guys so I love what she said about young women taking more than one job so that is that's something that came out very startlingly clear in our study cause many of women were doing like three different jobs they are writing, they are doing tagging, they are selling something online this one we found with five gigs yeah we were making 70k a day we started thinking about your career choices at that point and then we asked them but I thought the whole idea of being a gig worker is to increase flexibility and time and they asked me for who for what who said I want free time yeah I found my lifestyle I shut up at that point because I realized this is not a conversation that is going to end yeah so when you talk about regulating time and stuff it's also you're not regulating a personal choice you have to be very clear on that it's about because even I have met Uber drivers because when you're doing this study you're always on research mode you're always talking to everybody you know oh that's curious they do accounting on the side and then they do online writing and they're driving their Uber so they hold two or three at average it's three gigs at any one time and it's to fund their life it's not to leave it's not just putting food on the table to be honest but it's just funding their lifestyle so when you're talking about regulation of time you also have to give choice it's one of those things that you have to balance what does choice look like for for that so your question was around sustainability so negotiation is important especially for platformized gig work because sometimes and that's why I'm highly in support of Uber making sure because that is a life and death kind of job make sure they're contracting these either verbal or one of the things that we look at is actually contracting is is there a formal way of engaging you and formal way of engaging you does not need to be a written contract it can be a click of a button somewhere saying I'm engaging this person for the for the duration of doing this piece of work that is very important the challenge comes to 80% where it's just a verbal and a WhatsApp message it's a contract how do you enforce that again it's one of those things that while we want to regulate there's a lot of unknowns and you want the industry and the sector to mature just a little bit before we get there yeah like now when you abuse somebody online the other day there were two is it two lawyers huge lawyers who had a tiff and then they took each other to court it's a precedence so we need things like that tutor has matured to a place where when you have a tiff a twiff it's T-W-I-F when you have a twiff I can actually take you to court but how does that translate in the gig work we need the sector to mature before we make some of those decisions that might inhibit the growth of the sector often is it's always the big players of the client who is accused of breaching the agreement but also we've seen increasing levels of people taking up roles and they abandon them halfway or they don't quite deliver so in terms of just ensuring that it's more sustainable it's dignified you can plan around it and you mentioned a very great idea perhaps you just need to click somewhere to show that how then do you encourage like the individuals who are doing 3-4 gigs to put this in their closed what are they saying yes that one I forgot I forget what that is a voice thing for it so if the people who do that it's milestone based if I can be able to record of an Indian movie and read the script accurately over 3 hours I need to be paid for that and it takes preparation it's the preparation part of it just reading the script plainly reading it over all of that needs to actually be paid for that but there are some things that like I'm saying like the writing when I had prof saying we need to regulate like the reading hierarchy I felt like there are too many people who are learning through that process if we regulate that we'll be cutting them off because they actually just need that for experience yes do you want to raise your hands again please alright thank you so much my name is Nehma Amjesia from Kenya ICT Action Network and my question I will direct it to Elizabeth Wanja during this platforms that are online are there live periods for women who are maybe pregnant you're working and you need like a live you want your platform to continue working as it is the stars to be there but now you're pregnant you go for live for 9 months that platform is inactive so is there security for the women thank you I have two questions and I'll give a short background because I don't want oh okay I've seen on this paper for the panel discussion they say that this institute of the German federal ministry it's addressing issues relating to digitalization particularly in the global south so global south I presume is Africa and we are African people and I'm not against women who are in digital space very rightly put it when a woman put something before evening they want to pull it down so now my concern is on one thing we know that they are under attack because maybe some misunderstandings but of course they defend themselves because of what you call human rights so now under the rubrics of fundamental freedoms should we just say that people should not comment anything even if a group of gangsters organize themselves and say we want to do a march and we need viewership so that we can earn money so just shut up because it's our fundamental right and freedom so I want you to help us on this because some of these things we see for example me I don't believe that working is a career but of course it can attract viewership because my concern as a parent is one so what is the motive of this person doing it so kindly help me around that as I prepare the second question because she's a woman and that's what we're trying to address that you're okay to have your view on a product but there is cyberbullying and trolling that is discouraging a lot of women from participating in this space I got it right great, Bundy and then we'll come to you my name is Bundy thank you for sharing very great insights my question goes to Shiko you have highlighted the existence of a hidden hierarchy which really resonates very well with the online workers on the ground so the question is do you see a world where there is upward mobility among the online workers in these hierarchies such that newbies going up the hierarchy and going to the top of the hierarchy and what are the drivers to that good evening my name is Judeo I'm a student leader representing Kuso and also recently graduated from Kiriri Women's University so my question goes to Anja you are working with the young women and most of the time the comrades are not getting access to these online platforms which are genuine for them to better their career you find, even if you say that there's a bigger number of people who are in their online work but a bigger number of youth are out or are having the wrong channel of careers or online platforms that they are on so in what way will you at least try and advance it so that these young students can get access of these online platforms and also these young female especially from my school I'll advocate for that the young women and also in ICT and also the young women also in the business sector that at least can access these online platforms okay, maternity leave for online workers I'll give her an opportunity to respond to that she's an online worker and being a lady I know she will give it a different perspective from a skilling point of view but her from experience she'll talk about that, is that allowed I wanted to respond to the other question that she asked about universities as I talk my colleagues are in the coastal universities that is TUM and the coastal university when we talk about digital skilling I talked about the young women in the roller settings and also in the informal set ups however we work with the universities and we have signed so many of these are more used with the universities I'm not so sure why we have not come to where we are, we have been in Kenyatta University, we have been in Serku, the whole of this week I know tomorrow we'll be issuing certificates in TUM University all ensuring that the learners, the students and most of our impact stories that we have documented is what we have done with the university students however we are a bit specific to those ones in third or fourth year and for TFETS we start at a lower level than where we would start with the universities so we have ICT for education, budgeting primary and secondary schools it's about coding in TFETS we start at a certain level but universities there's the levels that we start on and when I talked about our curriculum starting from basic digital level to intermediate and to advanced, we are talking about solutions so there's all the packages there, I think it's just a matter of time that we get to where we are and this forum gives us an opportunity to network and talk more we have a package for you, thank you I don't think I had a question but maybe now that I have this I could share my experience from another project we appear in a project looking at cyberbullying on Facebook particularly funded by Facebook itself but focusing on universities but there are gender nuances that you are talking about for some reason just because she is a woman there are certain emotions that seem to drive and that reminds me of the Nairobi street if a woman passes by the kind of reactions and if she is a man when they are women ladies are more vulnerable to to bullying to cyberbullying and I think I don't know whether it's in our culture but that's true there's something else sorry to eat into this there's a social let me say social effects of some of these particularly those people that she was defining as being in the dark web people who are earning a lot of money driving they operate locomotives and that stuff they sleep when we are working they work when we sleep and a lot of social issues emerging going into drunkenness and drug abuse and you know I think that's also something that we could talk about so one of our respondents we didn't know this so we are busy doing work then she disappears for three days then she comes back like it's normal so I DMed her and asked her hi are you okay you've been away oh I just had a baby and she was back like she never left and that really struck me so I asked her what are you doing at work because you have to work if I leave I lose all my customers if I actually if I leave for more than that week if you notice my customers will notice and that is the reality of online work it is unfair in that sense so it's a matter of self discipline for the worker themselves that's why I love work in terms of just creating awareness it has to come from themselves nobody will institute go for maternity leave nobody will even say I'm pregnant if it's going to have an implication on my earnings I'm coming towards so what we've seen from our study there's actually an upward there's actually classes of workers there are those ones who are entry level there are people who are a bit qualified and there are seniors and there are people who actually own their account so what happens is they move upwards is they come in I've just learnt Excel and stuff I'm given like small small jobs to do once I've proven myself I'm given more complex work and even more complex work after that more complex work then I'm able to have confidence of opening my account and starting from scratch because I know how that route to getting my account 5 star will take so there is that it's there it's mobbed out that user journey is there completely there's somebody who asked I hope he has not left oh yeah he's not there how do you access this platform sweetie look on that side then at the back the person who is smiling find him that is a direct link I hope he will help you number 2 there's a program by government of Kenya called Ajira Ajira has done a lot of work it has strengths and weaknesses but what I've learnt I've loved about Ajira is it has a listing of platforms that you can actually go and get work from yeah verified platforms and they're not just a book there are hundreds of them yeah so for me I have a challenge for your colleagues so your colleague and then if you go to jquadku kabaraki in Nakuru Aldorage University which is the other one that does a lot of gig work Maseno all of them it's self discovery it's just you need just a little bit fire on your back so it's just that kid who go fire but Ken there he will sort you out Kabisa okay I've got two questions I think directly related to Dr Shiko first I think he mentioned issues my name is Alan Ratchawla from the SET research speed so my question two questions actually skill transfer you said you got to the algorithm driven and also the social media driven so I'm interested knowing if someone the transition from the informal work let me say informal inputs to the formal work trajectory and also because you saw the past below past 35 most of the people are not on this platform our assumption is where do they go and our assumption is that probably they are in the formal work so I'm interested in knowing also the skill can it be used as a means of gaining legal like maybe formal employment then I'm monitoring the second question issues around the issue of litigation to drive change because from whatever you are saying is like we are helpless we are the massive of base platforms we are seeing is that even this major platforms we are talking about like Facebook they have become responsible not through by empowering users but also by being fine there is one way which has driven them to be responsible so are you going to fold our arms and wait for these platforms to become responsible I'm challenging you kind of a way that you can use litigation to change in this platform are you seeing that one in the future? so my because the conversation today is largely around the online platform work maybe I wanted to pose this question generally to all the panelists in terms of when they take a look maybe down 5 years 10 years from now how do you see general trends in the offline work affecting online work because again online work does not exist in utopia it exists within what we have had is kibarua for a very long time so whereas sustainability in terms of online work maybe a conversation offline work sustainability there is no doubt about it because it's the norm it's how people have gotten jobs for years so what do you see the trends in the offline work which is the larger 80 or 90 as opposed to the 20 years speaking about today affecting online work because as it is even if you thought around the employment act we have not successfully tackled offline work if you thought about the various types of service contracts we have in these countries and many others at the end of the day the general trend within the offline work it's the same work as migrating largely to the online work how do you see general trends around offline work affecting the online part my name is Esther from Digital Opportunity Trust and I have a question for Shiko what from the research that you have been doing what are you seeing as the ways women especially but in general gig workers are dealing with issues around access to devices and the cost of data and what have you also seen around inclusion and how some of these platforms are driving inclusions for people with disabilities and people in rural and marginalized areas and then we've also seen a trend in the last few weeks a lot of the larger platforms have been letting go of thousands and thousands of people on Twitter which let go of all the African workers three days after they opened and Facebook this morning letting go of another I think thousand and how is that going to affect what we are seeing and we are timing us as inability within the gig economy because the platforms are hosting a lot of these gig workers thank you so much so just on skills transfer it's not past the age of 35 because people stop working for gig economy at the age of 35 it is age of 35 because when did internet become active in Kenya about 10, 12 years ago so the 35 year olds were in the early 20s at that time and they got actively involved on the internet so we are getting the dinosaurs of early internet access users being gig workers now because not because because they are actually aging to 35 so if you do start in five years this cut of age will be 40 and in 10 years it will be 45 why? because time is passing it's not because after 35 we are looking for other things it's because of where we are in terms of our maturity in terms of technology that makes sense litigation if you look at every Facebook case all of those things they have been primarily driven by customer safety those ones customer support organizations people it's associations of people who use this internet that lobby their governments to put measures in place it's not driven by government today google is taking too much data it's people coming together and saying google is taking too much our data Facebook has been violating our data let's go and lobby for our space and let's sell government they need to sue them to be able to put them in check so that has to happen ground up we have a great new minister in ICT trade and industry and industrialization those are the three ministers that affect this work those three ministers will not know what is happening until somebody tells them and it has to be followed by data from people who actually are actively using these platforms and that's why it has to be workers upwards number two there are trends offline and offline hi Alex you're good so it's going to affect I tell you we take our bad manners online yeah it's the same way I know Alex let me just plug in Alex Alex runs an amazing platform called ICT and it connects informal workers to gigs online using an online platform so if you want a fundi, a carpenter, somebody to claim for you please meet meet him he will help you okay I like he has a great platform so all these things people mama four nowadays are reliant on being on WhatsApp you know the state WhatsApp group your mama four is always asking how many of you are in those those who say mama four is available for two days a week because they've been put for a gun on their head please put me on that WhatsApp group I need work for two days yeah so that is happening already and it's going to continuously affect how we are doing our work and life access to devices it's still a big hurdle but one that is managed yeah so we have a couple of projects that we've done access to devices on a pay-as-you-go model this kids are doing lipopoly they are timing that if I take a gadget worth 40k I should be able to pay it in three months yeah and they are doing that yeah and they are being able to pay a really expensive gadget over three months and able to do their work the one thing I discovered is my file yeah by JT I'm sorry for I hope this I have not been paid for this this is not marketing by JTL yeah the fiber people it is so popular I I'm still going to get myself one because the data is cheap and it's reliable it's not overpopulated maybe after this everybody will just get a JTL my file and it will become really bad experience so people have learnt how to get here and this is happening not just in Nairobi we try as much as possible not to do our studies in Nairobi because Nairobi can be Nairobi or New York or London and it's the same experience in terms of the internet but outside there where it's real Africa we like experiencing that and what I've just told you is not a Nairobi thing it's somebody sitting in Yajururu yeah doing this so it is something that is happening they are hacking how to get access to the internet they are saying provided this 3G I'm going to be there so what we saw between 2021 June and now is most kids are actually migrating out of Nairobi because they are asking themselves why should I pay for a small apartment or a flat for 30K well I can go there and get one for 10K and my lifestyle does not change because I'm sitting on my desk 14-15 hours a day if I want to come to London I just find out my Audi and I'm in Nairobi and I'm here so that is happening unfortunately inclusion in this space is not great especially for physically disabled people it is very unfortunate it is not there yet it's been made for highly mobile people and yes there is a lot of work that is having fair work is working towards it and other organizations are working towards it it is not there Google it's not here it is unfortunately not there for women women are there they are trying to get their niche but they are not there yet as Elizabeth said we are not there yet but women are doing those hidden hierarchy because of caring of the fear of bullying I think once we saw bullying and being harassed online we will see a lot more women participating because I don't have to take comments the first study we did in 2020 we found women were taking men's name to be able to work online literally they became born today and I opened an account online so I am able to work because I wouldn't be harassed and it is not just being harassed online even bias towards getting work because you are going to be biased against getting work because you are a woman so the Google Wanjiko on the first picture they see there is this election violence this one cannot do the work but if I take born, you know born has a fancy name so I take his name and I get a lot of work so there is a lot of that and there is nuances around race as well like being black and African also people have decided they live in Indonesia and India but they are in Nairobi so they can get that work so there is all those nuances they are going to be worked on but at least we are taking one step at a time data we have been doing this for 3 years and things have changed over just those 3 years and COVID had a lot to do with it but that step change is not going back because of that and somebody asked about the effects of all these layoffs on what we are doing this layoff is momentary Twitter fired people then rehired them within 24 hours and it is going to happen after this recession in June after the summer of 2023 and after the summer of 2023 things are going to be up everything is going to be high everything is going to be bad so it is just because we are in the world going through a recession so job layoffs are happening I hope that helps there is another thing for other people did I answer? I just wanted to make 2 or 3 inputs to the question of moving online to offline I was looking at all the sectors and what we are doing with the digital skills even technology is evolving so what exactly are we doing with all the sectors? I am referring to a project that we have somewhere in Likipi and other counties and one of the things that I have noted the farmers will do they don't have to travel to the agrofit ask what is this that is affecting my business there is a way you can just take a photo of your plant whatever it is suffering from go to a certain app and what is it that you need to buy looking at most of these offline jobs and I was relating to so many sectors that we have whether it is agriculture, education everything I think it is for you in whichever sector that you are in to look at the opportunity that are there in digital skills because that is where we are headed that is where all the sectors are headed I mean we stopped taking our merchandise to the market we went to the WhatsApp status post the sort of shoes that I am selling and ensure that I have enough enough people who can ask we stopped wasting that time you know there is so much that has changed and it is for you to think of how can you refolutionalize the sector that you are in to ensure that you are making use of the digital skills so I am not saying that the offline jobs will end but how best can we make use of the technology in working I mean in those offline jobs I want us to bring this to a landing because of time but there is so many questions that have come on I will just scan through them and just pick one or two that we could address most of them have already been spoken about in regards to the gig economy there was a question of how do we empower marginalized communities to be part of this how do we protect gig workers who lack informed data how do we ensure that we have access to the resources of getting the data how do we ensure that mentors don't make more than mentees that have been addressed in regards to regulation how do we ensure that we protect new entrants from exploitation are there laws and regulations guiding that how do we stop exploitation comes and on the platforms in terms of exploitation promote creation and thriving of locally owned platforms so a lot of these are being on safety of the person getting the jobs and how do we ensure that they are safe going forward but to my panel as we bring this home in one sentence what is this one thing that can be done to ensure sustainability of online jobs let me start with Elizabeth she closes the mic I think that can be done to ensure sustainability one let's post regulations that's my humble request let's create more awareness to the youth that we have outside there online jobs are real people are making income out of it we only need to enhance and build so much capacity with them thank you thank you for me I would say that one of the issues that we should address is exposure that you know is enlightening and enables people to see opportunities there how best to get you know get hold of them be able to harness and exploit them so for me a real gig worker ask the question that most of them ask they don't want to be employed in real like 5, 3, 9 it's 9 these days 8 to 5 jobs thank you I think that's the flexibility of having a choice of what they want to do how do we help them go from one step to the other is it skills on one hand is it devices and infrastructure on the other is it being able to attract not attract position Kenya as a place to go if you have a lot of gig work Kenyans are skilled Kenyans are efficient and work with so that is how you develop that sustainability is increased skills increased access to infrastructure and devices and finally position the country in a way that people see it attractive enough like India to send jobs to us I guess that's a very good place to leave it where we've spent about slightly over an hour just wrapping our minds about how do we make this space sustainable special thanks to my panelist Dr. Chico, Prof Tom and Elizabeth round of applause to them please and a proper round of applause to my audience for all your questions and engagement and like we said this has been a fantastic oh sorry and also thank you for all the people who joined us online for staying with us throughout this session thank you we can give a round of applause to the people online and like we said in the morning this has been a learning expedition and as Fabian promised that a lot of the outcomes of this will be shared in some shape or form you will be able to get your hand into it this brings to an end the proceedings however I like to bring back Fabian to we have another survey now we're good fantastic so like I said I hope you did network I hope you got to speak to somebody else who is in this space and our hope is that some of the lessons that you have here will be carried off into the spaces in which you operate and they will be they will help in innovating and crafting solutions in those spaces so thank you very much thank you for your time thank you for spending your time with us I believe there's coffee outside and have a good evening thank you