 So yes, we're getting there. We're getting there. We're going to be wrapping up our morning sessions and preparing for the midday juiciness as well. Thank you so much for that rich conversation. So we're going to kind of like gather into this fireside chat where we have three speakers who are going to hold space and then a series of respondents, people with announcements, but really as the way they were described to me by John Kluge, they're the lightning spark that mobilizes this community. So let me tell you a little bit about the three folks holding the space. John Kluge is the founder and managing director of the Refugee Investment Network. This is the first impact-investing blended finance collaborative dedicated to creating long-term solutions to global forced migration. This is a very large issue as someone who looks at epidemics and pandemics. I think it's important for us to really pay attention to the fact that we are in a pandemic at this point around the migration of folks, the way in which we are being forced to to leave our homes for various reasons, you know, to find safety and to find care and to find belonging, and so when I asked John, where do you live? You know, I'm always interested in, you know, place and how place shapes our work. He said, oh, I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I went, oh, Okay, well, that's an interesting place. And so, you know, he has a lot to say about, you know, the energy that has been reconfigured and the way in which we can show up in spaces and represent for racial equity and represent for the folks who perhaps don't look and sound like us, but who have been doing and will continue to be doing work for social justice and radical inclusion. So welcome, John Kluge, to the stage, everyone. Yes. And then we have Rumables from Humanitarian Ventures. She is a business exec, extraordinary, an entrepreneur, a bestselling author and serves on the United Nations Foundation for Global Entrepreneurs Council. She also launched the Tent Foundation when she was the director at the Chilugi Foundation. And so I'm interested to hear about how someone who has such a broad range of expertise, you know, is now focusing in on this conversation with other folks and how she's going to be doing yet at a higher level, this work to bring forth the conversations on refugees. And really, as we're talking about this market on the move. And then last, we have Bert van der Wacht, who is the CEO and founder of Small Enterprise Assistant, I'm sorry, Small Enterprise, hmm, I'm not sure what the title is. It is assistance, assistant funds. And I know that there's been investment in small and medium enterprises. And so the three of them are going to hold this space, this container for a while, and there will be a group of people who follow up with response, with ideas and with innovation. So welcome them to the stage this morning. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here at SoCAP at the main stage. And I think quite incredible to think about how far this community has come over the last three years. When I first came to SoCAP to talk about forced migration, there was only one panel on the topic. Today, there are nearly a dozen on various forcibly displaced communities, various interventions happening, and today we're sitting here on the main stage. So I think that we're making a lot of progress. The question is, why are we really here? And why are we here? And part of that is to offer you a different narrative, a different story. One that is filled with opportunity, one that is filled with need, and one that is filled with promise, which is very different from the narrative and the story we hear about refugees and forcibly displaced people. Often through the lens of burden, through the lens of fear, and the lens of hopelessness. When I think about our topic today and the sort of the lens of refugee investing as a concept, I think about the progress that has been made by the impact investing industry over the last several decades. I think about the work that has been done before us in gender lens investing, the growth of renewable energy investing. I think about the mobilization of people who have responded in the 80s to the AIDS crisis and the progress that has been made over the last 15 years in fighting malaria. Global forced migration is not a crisis. We're facing a crisis of hopelessness and a lack of creativity and commitment. But that's changing. So today we are announcing the creation of a new initiative, one that is a project of the global development incubator called the Refugee Investment Network. As an investment intermediary, we're helping to facilitate deals across the capital continuum, partner with entrepreneurs, with refugees, other displaced people, with development finance institutions and governments all over the world to facilitate the movement of capital and the unlocking of potential from displaced people. If you think about the growth of gender lens investing, there were sort of three primary ingredients that really helped to spur that movement. One was societal change and demand. This is the right and necessary thing to do. Another was the empirical data and evidence that said this is not just a good investment, not just the right investment but a good and a smart investment. Third was a framework that investors could use to actually find, qualify and execute on deals that would support the growth of women entrepreneurs and women managed companies. So with the announcement of the Refugee Investment Network, we are also launching our first landmark report called Paradigm Shift, how impact investing can unlock the potential of refugees. You can download this report at refugeeinvestments.org slash Paradigm Shift. And in the report, we make the case that refugees are investable. They have higher entrepreneurship rates than any other population on the planet. They are employable. Their retention rates are higher than non-refugee personnel. They are credit worthy contrary to what the biases of MSIs often are. Kiva has provided data on 8,000 micro-entrepreneurs in over four countries that verifies that the risk for lending to a displaced entrepreneur is no higher than lending to a non-displaced person. And in some countries, it's actually higher, the repayment rate. So we also studied over 180 different investors, deals, grantors, to understand who's active in this space. And what we found is that there's more deals being done than we thought. We've uncovered about 80 active deals, as well as closed ones, and 300 other deals in pipeline development now. So this is really what we see as the frontier in the beginning of a new investment thesis. There's a need to shift into an investment and long-term approach inclusive of displaced communities. And I am so honored and lucky to be here today with Ruma and Bert, two people that are leading this field. So Ruma, why is this necessary? Why should we be doing this? Well, thank you, John. I want to just start by congratulating you for launching this report because as somebody who's been working in this field for several years, you've shown this incredible leadership to mobilize all of us and just bring all this information and help us understand what these use cases are. And I want to thank you sincerely for that. In terms of why should we invest? I mean, if you just look at the numbers, 67 million refugees, which is up from 60 million just three years ago, that number is just going up. Half of them are under the age of 18. There are, the last time I checked, two million women who are pregnant. So we're now going to start seeing kids that just grow up within this refugee crisis. And we all understand the limitations of aid and the potential of what business can do. So I can't think of a better way to think about how to deploy social capital to help solve this crisis. I think what's important in terms of understanding how to invest is to understand the actual journey of the refugees, which are, it's different for different regions of the world. And, you know, it's staged, there are several stages and different solutions at every stage of the way. But I think if you look at it through the lens of journey mapping, what you'll see is there are many aspects of the refugees journey that are very similar to any immigrant that immigrates to another country. And the needs and the services and the products that they need are very similar to what you and I need and what new immigrants coming into a new country need, whether it's shelter, financial services, you know, nutrition, like, you know, the list goes on. So I think that sometimes it can be very intimidating because we think about refugees as this vulnerable population that isn't a customer, doesn't know, you know, doesn't have an opportunity to really engage in a business setting, and they can. They're very resilient individuals, they make great employees, they make great entrepreneurs, and they are customers. Well, so, you know, maybe Bert, you can give us an example of your work that reinforces roomist points about this. Has this been done before? Is this, you know, something totally new? It has been done before for the reasons that you also mentioned, both the motivation, the desire to make a successful start after having been in many cases displaced without any money whatsoever. And we can talk about some specific entrepreneurs that we've invested in. We certainly look at the lens, like the refugee investment network has built in us, to look at companies that both provide products and services disproportionately to the refugees and who better to be able to offer those than the entrepreneurs who are from that community themselves. Because backing up just a little bit, CIF for 30 years has been investing in the emerging markets where what we believe is that sustainable development really is best achieved by backing local entrepreneurs. Now, the challenge with refugees and migrant entrepreneurs is that many times they have to develop their whole contact network in a new country where they wind up with. But what we've seen is just the motivation, obviously, of arriving without any assets whatsoever. So I'll tell you about one story about a refugee from Bosnia. He actually was a Serb who was kicked out of Bosnia and was placed into Northeast Serbia in the Banat region, very poor region, not much was going on. He had no money and what he did, he borrowed a truck and began to provide goods and services to local mama-pop supermarkets. He was a highly hard-working, integrity-filled guy and over time, and this was during the transition for Serbia, which was, as you know, not the world's favorite nation after the Balkan conflict. And so what he was able to do was develop a local network of sourcing. He began to supply them to mama-pops. Ultimately, the mama-pops found this all too complicated. They asked him to take the stores over. And by the time we saw him in 2008, he had 15 stores. He had a couple of trucks and about 200 people working for him. We invested a million euro. Ten years later, he has 100 million euro in sales, 2000 employees, and he still sources 90% from local stuff. So incredible, the community really thanks this guy so much. And I think why that was, was of his need to rebuild the community. Why that was was because he understood the security, the insecurity of many of the people. And he's been a terrific employer understanding those needs and fears. Many times, the employees were also non-skilled or semi-skilled high school. We've seen this there. We've been in Bangladesh and in Turkey. Turkey where a lot of Syrian refugees, well educated, even commercially very sophisticated, and yet they come and they're not allowed to work. It turns out that they obviously speak Arabic. Many Turks don't. So setting up a call center for Arabic language services, disproportionately hires well educated Syrian refugees. I find so many times, as Aruma is saying, these refugees are stigmatized by not having a chance to make a contribution. And instead, then the people in the community begin to say, you're a dead weight, you're a tax. So how can we show that these entrepreneurs, or even the services they provide, make that community productive again? I think that's why investment in entrepreneurs and fast-growing companies that really target these needs and services show such great results. Bert, some people might say that the case of Go-Mex is almost like a unicorn. But you've been at this for 30 years. Is he one and only example? No, not at all. Obviously, Go-Mex is really good. I don't know whether I can say this. We made 15 times our money on that one over 10 years. So it is kind of a unicorn at the SME level. But we've seen this, I mean, the tempo, this Drinkwell, which is a company that's providing a unique source of water, distributed solar for migrants' communities. These are all providing goods and services for a lot of people who have nothing. What we're seeing right now in the Columbia area, 2 million refugees from Venezuela, you provide clean water, you provide food, you provide education. People need it, people want it. And typically governments are far behind, they don't have anybody to execute it. I mean, it's important to say that most of these refugees are not in Istanbul. They're out in the south, near the border of Syria, or they're in southeast Bangladesh near Chittagong, or they're in northeast Serbia. They're not where people are easily, let's say, accessible. And so in those areas, good investments which cater to the needs and demands of people which are right-in-large, not-met, will grow fast and will do well. Of course, you need to select the right entrepreneurs. You need to be there to monitor and structure it. But I think that what we've found out is that people who have been displaced, whether internally or through borders, are so grateful for the chance, are so motivated to succeed that they provide, I would agree with what Kiva has found out, I think they provide better than normal investment opportunities. We're equity, we're not debt, but on the equity side, I think that has been a really very good experience for us. Well, that's good to hear. But not everyone is investing in emerging markets, you know? Correct. And not everyone wants to take that risk. So, Ruma, maybe you can talk to us a little bit about it, some different approaches. What else do you see that's working and moving well? Well, my great hope for this crisis from an investment perspective is technology. I think what is striking when you go to any area of the world that has refugees is that refugees are using 21st century technologies to manage and navigate their lives, and the technologies that they're being met with are just extremely archaic. And I think a big opportunity is, you know, the technology that exists here right in the Bay Area. How do we get the most cutting edge, fastest growing tech companies that are solving big problems in the world to start thinking about the humanitarian sector? So not just think about it not as what are the companies that are exclusively serving refugees, but thinking more in terms of what are their needs and what are the products and services they need, and which are the companies around the world that are the best in the world at doing that. And go to them and try to get them to think about a new market. And I think, you know, there are countless examples and the humanitarian sector, you know, badly needs it. So it's almost like taking an activist approach. So instead of sort of designing a new deal that would somehow improve or incorporate progress for forcibly displaced people, it's taking an existing deal and converting that into something that would benefit displaced people. I mean, think about drone technologies to have the ability to use drone technology to bring food in the most remote parts of the world. Money transfers, health delivery, credit law. I mean, if you think about the journey, just take the Syrian refugees journey. Those that are taking this incredible journey when they decide to leave their homes, they're selling off all of their assets to get cash, and they're walking, you know, across Europe with massive amounts of cash. I mean, there's an opportunity right there. And when they, you know, that journey they take from Turkey to Greece, you know, it's anywhere between three to 5,000 euros per person. So family of four arrives in Greece. They're already 20,000 euros in debt. They're all trying to get themselves to Northern Europe, primarily Germany. They arrive in Germany. They're probably, you know, 30, 40, 50,000 euros in debt. And the German government has done an incredible job of welcoming refugees, and they have many social programs, but the bulk of which is about sending refugees into apprenticeship programs. But what they need is liquidity, and they need to, they need debt. They want to alleviate their debt. So right there, there's an opportunity for a credit company or to come in and alleviate them of their short-term debt and give them opportunities to work, because the government then wonders why a refugee is going into the informal economy. It's because they have a lot of debt. And so if you just think about that, they all care about their health. The health services that exist along this journey and in the camps are just terrible. Why can't we develop insurance products for that? Why don't we have drug delivery that, I mean, there's just so many opportunities around. You mentioned one backstage earlier that really caught my ear, which was Planet Labs. Yes, so I got really excited when I heard about Planet Labs. So I'm sure many of you are familiar with them. They're a micro-satellite company that take images of the planet every hour. So huge commercial applications for that. But if you think about how migration patterns are determined today within the NGO and UN system, literally people are sitting around a room with a whiteboard and speculating where they think migrants and refugees are going to go next. If you take the example of the Rohingyas coming from Myanmar to Bangladesh, you may all remember there was a time when the Rohingyas were complaining that generals were burning their villages. And there was never any evidence of that until Planet Labs formed a partnership with Amnesty International, and they were able to produce the evidence that this was actually happening. And now there's a case, right? But without that technology, it wouldn't have happened because our systems are so archaic. Now our systems are very challenged, but how do we get companies like Planet Labs to start thinking about using their technologies in these areas that otherwise they wouldn't have thought of? In some ways, you're asking investors to kind of lean into their existing portfolios and find applications, right? Because as an investor, you have an opportunity to influence the companies and sort of bring to bear what you care about and how can you facilitate and help them do the things that you think are right. I think one takeaway in this context is that even though we may find ourselves on another side of the planet from forced migration or far away from some of these markets, one, we have to understand that this affects everything that we do. Forced migration connects to 13 out of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. If we want to achieve the SDGs, we have to invest in long-term solutions of forced migration. Two, that there are opportunities for every investor, regardless of your geographic interest, your sectoral interest, the scale of the deal you're looking at or whether you're interested in investing in tech companies here in the US or in emerging markets through SME opportunities overseas. As we think about this, we've got 189 different capital sources that we profiled in the report. About 52% of those are active in the space, meaning they've executed at least one deal. Not all of that is through intention or design. Some of it was actually by accident. We just unearthed the fact that they had impacted positively some displaced communities. How do we shift the scale? How do we create this paradigm shift that allows investors to see that they are active and necessary agents to solving perhaps the most urgent and defining social crisis of our time? Well, I think one of the issues is how do investors approach that? There's not a mutual fund for that. There's not a ready understanding of how that money that an investor wants to benefit the theme that you're outlining. How does it get there? How does it trace there? How can I make sure that my money is there? We've had to develop, I think, a flex account which in a sense allows investors to say, I only want my money to be invested in refugees or refugee themes in these countries. If you don't find a good deal for that one, then don't charge me. Don't bring up my money there. If you do find something, then bring it in. I think Keev has done a great job personalizing the connection between the investor and the object, the desire of the investor to really show to make a difference. Old products, blind pools, put my money in, get it back eight years later. I think it doesn't really do justice to the impact that people want to create. So I think new products like the flex account are ways at the same time to provide responsibility to tax structuring, to monitoring the political protection as well for the investment capital that I think people deserve and want to do before they're ready to commit money. So the thought is there. I think a lot of people want to. You have to, however, find a responsible mechanism through which their money can be directly associated with the themes we're talking about here. There are many thoughts on how the SOCAP community and the broader impact investing community can get engaged. I think that we need to do a better job of talking about this in a language that more people understand. I think when we have success stories is what you've described earlier. We need to be out there and sharing that so more people hear about it. This Planet Lab story, everyone should know about it. I think the power of storytelling is very, very strong. But what I would encourage everyone in this audience to do is look at your current portfolios and see are there any companies that can actually have an impact. And if so, talk to them about it. And talk to me about it because I'd love to hear. But just we need more people to engage. This is one of the biggest crisis of our lifetime. And we need people to just want to do more. And a good way to start is look at what your existing investments are and are there any opportunities for those companies to start doing something? Well, there you have it. Ruma has thrown the gauntlet down to SoCAP. And I'd like to respond to that and say that we're about to light a spark here, which I hope will inspire you and encourage you to become active participants in writing a new narrative and a new story about including forcibly displaced people. I'm giving an opportunity for every person to matter where they come from to have a pathway to dignified and purposeful life. So with that, we're going to kick off some announcements. We have some surprises for you. We have eight wonderful people that are coming and share their commitments, how they're going to be participating in this to build a movement for refugee lens investing. And we hope that you will join them. So without any further ado, I'd like to call up Chris Jancy from Amplio Ventures. Chris, please join us on stage. Come on out, sir. Good morning. So four years ago, my wife and I started a staffing company placing refugees into jobs here in the U.S. We started this in a suburb outside of Atlanta, Georgia in a community known as the most diverse square mile in the world called Clarkston. And over time over the past four years, as the business has grown, we've been able to place individuals in Dallas and Houston and Raleigh and set up offices in those locations around the U.S. But we looked up and we said, okay, we've helped about 3,000 refugees who've come to the U.S. find full-time employment. And as excited as we were about that achievement, we looked around the world and we said, we've barely scratched the surface. We recognize that only 1% of refugees have made it to the U.S. And so there's got to be some other solution. We said job placement works really well in developed economies. But if we want to move the needle on a global scale, then we have to think more about job creation. So over the last several months, we've been working for this moment where we get to announce the launch of a venture capital firm. And so I want to make that announcement right now if that's okay with you. But I'm going to need you to participate. So we're filming this, obviously it's being filmed by SoCAP. We're filming it as well. We want to share this video around the world and let people know that we're excited. And there are people with us, standing with us that are excited about investing in refugee entrepreneurs. So as I say this next sentence, if you'll help me, stand to your feet and just erupt in jubilation so that we can share this message around the globe. Okay, so not ready. You're not ready. Okay, here we go. Next sentence, get ready. It is with great anticipation that we're excited to announce in partnership with the Refugee Investment Network our commitment to launch a growth scale and venture capital firm where we can invest in businesses who are restoring refugee stability. So this will be Amplio Ventures. Thank you. So our commitment is to deploy $100 million in capital by 2030 into refugee entrepreneurs and companies that are investing in refugees on a global scale. And we're excited to partner with Refugee Investment Network to do that. And as well as with the seven others who are coming after me. So I need you to give just as much excitement and energy and applause to them as they come out and share their commitments as well. Thank you. Come over here. If you'll just stand behind us. I'm going to ask everyone to stay on stage and you'll see why later. Hi, everyone. Good morning. My name is Agnes Dosevich and in 1989 I joined CIF who you just heard all about as one of its first employees. Right now I'm one of their newest board members. So it's really amazing what CIF has done in the last three decades. In 1989 they've actually raised and managed funds in 17 countries which have been affected by conflict. Including places like Afghanistan, the Balkans, Peru, Colombia, Turkey, Bangladesh. So it's really my pleasure to announce that through funds and managed accounts that CIF has under management and through products that it will raise, CIF intends to invest 50 million dollars into the placed person lens enterprises by the end of the year 2020. And CIF is pledging this as part of the Refugee Investment Network which we're incredibly proud to be part of. Thank you very much and we really look forward to working with all of you. Jay Kim from the Ascent Fund. Good morning. My name is Jay Kim and I'm with the Juicera Foundation and as part of the Refugee Investment Network the Juicera Foundation is committed to the first impact investment fund in Greece working around refugee issues. The Ascent Venture Fund will be investing in companies in SMEs that will create jobs for refugees and vulnerable host community members. It will do so by following the investment thesis of combining the need for SME lending which is the market opportunity that we have identified in Greece where banks are saddled with 46% non-performing loans and using that to incentivize companies to create jobs for refugees. We have found a very strong pipeline of companies that are willing to work with refugees because there is no SME financing or growth capital for these companies. On the labor on the labor supply side we'll also be complimenting the fund with a side-card technical assistance vehicle to be able to identify train and match refugees with the employment opportunities. I think what's exciting about this is that we have now been able to raise about 80% of the funds that we need to launch this impact investment fund in Greece by the first quarter of 2019. For every $10 million invested we project being able to create $25 million of incremental income for refugees. I think even the fact that much of Europe is saddled with high unemployment rates and social integration of refugees is one of the most urgent issues facing the continent and having global implications as you guys are all aware. We believe that this is a really exciting product in order to change the narrative and show that refugees can add value to these host communities not just by producing and integrating socially but also by becoming economic contributors to the economy. So in any case as you guys know one of the biggest challenges with this space and the work that John is trying to do is that it's a nascent space. There's not really a marketplace. So I guess my call to action would be if there's anyone in this room who is interested in using impact investment tools to create and address refugee livelihood issues. Please come see me or find me or email me at the JUSTA foundation website. Thank you. John Lev Flaves from Kiva. Great. Thanks everyone. As part of the refugee investment network we at Kiva have been trying to solve the problem that refugees seek economic opportunities but they're largely financially excluded. Local financial institutions around the world are unwilling to lend to refugees because they're perceived as too risky. So at Kiva we set out three years ago using our crowdfunding platform. For those of you who have visited the website to make a loan it's a social investment. You're putting in $25 and you're not getting a return on that. It's a social return and you're also taking on the risk of default. So because of that we channeled that funding to local financial institutions around the world who were in countries with high refugee populations and it's providing them with the capital they need to go out and pilot refugee lending. It's giving them the R&D capital they need to overcome the challenge of refugees being perceived as too risky for refugees. And we've done this to over 11,000 refugees over $10 million in loans and what we're really excited about is that the repayment rate that we're seeing for these 11,000 refugees matches the repayment rate for non-refugees. And for us and for our local financial institutions that we're working with this is huge because it shows that refugees are viable credit clients and so that's allowing us to move on and take the next step today. So I'm going to hand it over to Premal so we're really pleased to announce something that is very new for Kiva which is for the first time ever if you're a return-seeking investor you can invest side by side with the Kiva crowdfunding platform that has never provided a return on that billion dollars that's been lent through it on a select number of opportunities that we feel now have been de-risk in refugee financial inclusion. Why is this important? Because our local field partners now that are seeing the business case for lending to refugees that this can actually be profitable they're still pioneer firms in their market and if we can help scale up that lending program we believe other firms other banks in the market will take notice and ideally we can flip the market towards true refugee financial inclusion not just for the pioneer firm not just for the pioneer bank that's doing it with R&D capital from crowdfunding but really multiple options for people who are looking to create livelihoods and need capital to get that started so we'd love your feedback as we are on our own learning journey around this first-time investment vehicle we're seeking to raise $50 million we are deep in conversations with a $20 million anchor and as was shown on the slide the IRR expectation should be between 1 and 5% the loan term is a debt capital loan term what we're seeking is people who are willing to put partner money with us between 3 and 10 years to raise the risk refugee financial inclusion opportunities we look forward to your feedback thank you thank you guys next up is Gustavo Bernal from Terra Blanca Buenos dias after having worked with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Kellogg School of Management Sustainable Investing Fellowship Terra Blanca is now ready to pilot the Rural Displacement Fund so as part of the refugee investment network we are committed to piloting in 2019 the Rural Displacement Fund we will acquire at least 100 acres of land in post-conflict rural Columbia and parcel it into smaller farming units construct prefabricated modular houses and allow displaced families to return as smallholder farmers we believe that secure land rights are the key to break that cycle of violence and poverty so our objective is to provide them with access to finance through rural leases so that they can acquire land, they can construct their houses but most importantly we're also going to help them access international markets we want them to better sell their produce and effectively use international trade as a development tool so at the moment we're currently raising $1 million to start the pilot next year hopefully we can secure layers of intent by long-term investors before SOCAP ends we just need investors to understand that this is in many ways very similar to a mortgage but it's still a long-term initiative and at the end of the day we at Terra Blanca want to help the displaced communities in post-conflict Colombia to restart the livelihoods and rebuild ownership of their lands thank you yeah thank you Gustavo John Morris 17 Asset Manager thank you, good morning I'm representing Good Capital Project one of intentional media's brands which we in partnership with Jordan UNDP six months ago launched Seventeen Jordan a platform to catalyze and create design sessions around the best investments that could rise the level of humanity through the refugees and achieve the most progress for SDGs that has led to creating Seventeen Asset Management a firm in partnership with UNDP or UNCDF in which we will look to deploy our first fund in Jordan through in the network of refugee investment network looking at a refugee lens to create as much employment and growth in Jordan over the next six months so 30% of the capital will be going into refugee communities or their host communities thank you next up is Seth Hodel from Post Road Foundation Seth, good morning we are the Post Road Foundation and we focus on helping disadvantaged communities bring modern 21st century infrastructure to themselves so we focus on fiber optic networks that can provide digital access to those communities that don't have modern accessibility to the internet and that can also provide smart grid systems and other smart utility systems for energy and water to provide environmental benefit so as part of the refugee investment network we commit to pilot a new model for developing high speed internet infrastructure for displaced and other disadvantaged communities including Native American communities thank you thank you Seth Alice Bosley from 5.1 Labs hello everybody I feel like you've heard a lot of us but I'm really excited to be here today I'm Alice the executive director of 5.1 Labs and we are a start up incubator for displaced and conflict affected entrepreneurs based in the Kurdistan region of Iraq incredible people like Fatima who has displaced from Fallujah lost her savings lost her ability to rebuild but was a total badass taught herself how to code and wanted to launch her own business so we helped her launch a coding school for kids and she went through our incubator she's just one of the many people we work with so we are excited to be here with the refugee investment network we are making a commitment that in the next year we will launch the female founders program working with other amazing people like Fatima to help them scale their businesses and in addition we are planning on launching the RIN tech award for the best tech business that goes through our incubator they are going to get $10,000 from the amazing people that we are standing on stage with today so thank you all thanks Alice a round of applause for all of our market leaders here thank you all so much for leading the way this is an invitation for all of you and for the investment community beyond SoCAP to get into this sector it is a necessary, urgent and very promising space and we hope that you will come build this field with us as the session winds down after the close of the session I'd like to invite anyone out there who is part of the field considers themselves part of the community of people building the field in refugee and forced migration investing so if you are an ecosystem builder an entrepreneur, a displaced person a funder, a development finance institution who is doing this work please come join us we are going to take a field builders photograph which we will be able to track over the next few years as our community and market grows so thank you so much you all have a wonderful afternoon so we have come to the close of the morning session I want to make sure that you all have this opportunity to document what is happening it is important that we see and that we state who is at the table at the beginning at the ideation stage as we move forward and this opportunity for us to join to collaborate which is actually the true nature of our being this is how we live on the planet by connecting with other beings by connecting with other ways of thinking and collaborating and regenerating so thank you for this work thank you so as we transition into the midday of the session it is really just my joy to thank you for allowing me to hold some space to just steward a bit of the time with you this morning my counterpart beautiful co-MC will be joining you this afternoon and I just want to remind you of this opportunity to come back at 2 come back at 2pm there are some gifts of course for you to pick up at SoCAP I think this is our third year of having the pint glasses if you are a person who collects the swag from SoCAP be sure to do that it's at the bookstore there is a party tonight I'm all about the party SoCAP is such a fabulous party at the end so be sure to keep up with that but what's happening this afternoon the programming is I think going to be particularly spicy because one of the bad boys of all time Mr. Andre Agassi is presenting this afternoon and his newest work in the whole social impact sphere and there's also a conversation panel discussion on the unexpected impact of technology so here we are kind of like in this bastion of the tech world all eyes continue to be on the Bay Area and there's so much to be said around different aspects of technology I really I think it's going to be a good conversation so please come back for that and then in closing I just have really my closing thought is around just the special tender place that we are in right now this is a potent and very smooth opportunity for us to like investigate ourselves and that we're here in a society in our communities and our families you know at our own kitchen tables and you know all the blinders are off it's like we actually have to look at ourselves and that this actual regeneration this innovation that we go out to the world and like represent you know to everyone and hope that they join us first in inner journey and then that's a lot of the conversation that is being you know pulled apart and investigated here at Socap and so the work that we do has to continue to be mindful it has to be restorative it has to be reflective and personal it has to be forgiving and I would also offer that it has to center the stories the lives of the people most impacted by the ills of our society that we've created I would offer that that work has to center the lives of people of color of women of color in particular and that you allow yourself to question what that work might look like for you personally it's hard work it's long work but we must do it we must do it so the time is up for any of those who are not up for that the blinds are off and I thank you for your your attention and for your beautiful spirit and for your openness and willingness to be part of this collaboration as we look at the intersection of money and meaning at Socap thank you for your time and for your morning