How social innovation will break all boundaries refugees are facing | Bisan Abdulkader | TEDxCesena

Entrepreneurship, together with refugees, is a win-win strategy. Innovation is a charming world, especially for those who have no place in the conventional one. Imagine if you were to spend a life without citizenship, how could you create a home, and replace the one you lost? In order to survive, people invent their own way, and when there is not the option to lose, they find the only way to win! Being a survivor, immigrant, or refugee, implies having an entrepreneurial soul, a risk-taking attitude, and persistence, to break walls and create opportunities.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Do you think innovation will help
in the empowerment of refugees?

To answer this question,

I will delve into the very delicate topic
of citizenship and community.

Personally, I have never had citizenship,

as I belong to the third generation
of a displaced community

from Palestine to Syria.

Refugees who lost, by default,
a package of human rights,

a barrier which forces us
always to think outside boundaries.

I was born in Damascus, Syria,
and I enjoyed living the privileges

of having entrepreneurial parents,
growing up in a thriving environment.

Even though I was born
as a refugee, in Syria,

I've lived a fairly luxurious lifestyle,

and some of my friends joked
that I was an aristocratic refugee.

I moved to Europe in 2010 and I earned
a Master's in Business Administration,

run between Budapest
and New York City.

During my study,

I was seeking to breathe again

the air of the Jasmine city, Damascus.

But the situation erupted,

and made the whole area insecure,

and made my desire to go back
seem as if I was in denial

of the fact that there is war at home.

I realized I had to stay abroad longer,

waiting for new Jasmine
to bloom again in Damascus.

As I did not grow up in Europe,

I always thought
I would be staying here shortly,

and I felt trapped

the moment I tried to belong to a system
that does not recognize me,

my documents, or my history.

Difficulties emerged
in every office I entered.

Clerks, sometimes, have to choose
for me a citizenship from a list,

to push papers.

It does not matter where;

in the hospital, university,
airports, usually I smile

when I see the way
clerks are staring at my documents.

Once a lady told me,

"You cannot marry here,
because we do not recognize your state."

I realized that I have to do a lot more
to get what is usually taken for granted.

I have to invent my way out,
I have to create my own opportunities.

But having a degree in Physics,
and another in Business Administration

opened the way for me to work
in the commercialization of technology.

I stepped into the entrepreneurial
and innovation scene,

and I emphasize the added value

of having a diverse know-how and culture.

In this way I discovered
the open world of innovation;

a world, a space with less prejudice.

Failure was as present as success.

Many times I have to maneuver around
discrimination, racism, and bureaucracy.

But working together
with innovators from Italy,

Hungary, and many other destinations,

made me feel like I belong to this state,

the state of innovation,
of challenging the status quo.

I enjoyed working in an open
and dynamic environment

based on the integration of science,
business, technology, design,

to create new outcomes, new solutions.

In the meanwhile,

the war at home, in the last five years,

has taken from my happiness.

But never from hope,

because I am determined

to create a positive wave impact from here

all the way to the other side
of the Mediterranean, where I came from.

When the refugees crisis, the so-called
refugee crisis in Europe emerged,

I took initiative, I started a campaign
with an enlightened team,

trying to involve refugees and immigrants

in the innovative
entrepreneurial cycle, in Italy.

And why not?

If entrepreneurs and innovators
usually challenge the status quo,

exactly like refugees,

they'll have the key role in involving
refugees in the economic cycle.

In this way we had a vision
that, enabling refugees

to start their own activities
in a co-working ecosystem,

will create opportunities.

So refugees can be potential partners,

and resources of economic change,
instead of loading the economy.

We imagine that working
side to side with refugees

will create and will help in crafting
tools to utilize the inflow of experience,

a diverse experience,

of engineers, physicians,
programmers, and makers,

and involve them in a new,
creative way, with Italians.

An example of what we're trying
to do in Italy, from Germany:

in Berlin, entrepreneurs
from Peace Innovation Lab,

have launched a school
for coding for refugees

and they tried to employ them
in the labor market.

Another example from the Netherlands,

where the refugees' incubator

is giving refugees the needed knowledge
and financial support

to start their own activities.

From Silicon Valley,

where "Reboot Kamp" is a project

taking place for teaching
refugees' children coding skills.

And how can we make this
happen also in Italy?

Opening co-working spaces,
the local co-working spaces,

opening the local incubators,
and accelerators,

and allow the inflow
of this diverse knowledge.

Supporting startups
that involve immigrants,

and merge them in the social
economic tissue of our society.

One could argue that a company
founded by a refugee

will lack the interaction
with the local territory,

and will fail.

Yes, I agree.

Because we need to work together,
refugees and local citizens,

adding up geographical
and cultural dimensions,

to reach to new horizons.

In this way only,

entrepreneurship with refugees
will be a win-win strategy.

Imagine,

if you have to pass a life
without having a citizenship,

if you left a life beyond the sea,

how can you create a new life?

How can you create a new home
and replace a lost one?

To survive, people invent their ways,

and when there is nothing to lose,
they will find the only way to succeed.

For that, being a survivor,
an immigrant, or a refugee,

implies having the entrepreneurial spirit,

where risk-taking and resistance
are the only ways,

the only options:

breaking down walls and creating
new opportunities from barriers.

For me, when it's very difficult,
when I feel like just giving up,

I continue to try to resist,

because what I'm trying to do

is not just for me,
it is the work of a team

that does not exist anymore.

For a generation of youth,
who are under siege, or fire,

scattered in the world, or in the sky,

let me ask you today to think of this:

Next time, when you meet
a foreigner in your town,

don't ask him, "Where are you from?"

Try to ask him,

"What do you want to do here?

What do you want to create with us?"

Thank you.

(Applause)