Two billion-dollar tech companies have teamed up with several smaller technology groups to help thousands of Syrian refugees who will arrive in Australia later this year.
Employees from search giant Google, successful Australian start-up Atlassian and fellow tech players Palantir, Optiver, Ansarada and Industrie IT gathered in Sydney on Thursday and Friday for a 24-hour 'hack-a-thon' to find solutions to common problems that newly arrived refugees face.
The problem-solving session focused on a humanitarian intake of 12,000 Syrian refugees, the bulk of whom are expected to arrive in Australia some time this year. As many as 7000 will settle in NSW, with many expected in Liverpool and western Sydney.
With the help of Settlement Services International (SSI), a non-profit agency that is the first point of contact for about 3000 refugees that arrive in greater Sydney each year, 15 small teams of workers from each company were told of the challenges of fleeing to a new country.
Common barriers include not knowing how to speak English, being worried for friends and family still in Syria, experiencing trauma from war, focusing on short-term work rather than long-term education, and being unable to prove past qualifications because documentation often gets left behind.
The groups pitched ideas including designing a smart phone application in two languages that would serve as a guide to Australia, and offering a HECS-style loan scheme that would pay refugees while they studied so they could move beyond entry-level work.
However, the session's winning idea – as judged by a representative from Liverpool Council and two employees from SSI – came from Atlassian employees Stephen Bennett, Aman King, Dipanjan Laha, David Richard and Peter Robbins.
The group were inspired by a friend of Mr Bennett's, who arrived in New Zealand as a refugee from Myanmar and found he was unable to continue working as an electrician. To solve this problem for others, they devised a plan where companies in all industries would pledge internship positions to skilled refugees, giving them hands-on experience in an area they are already skilled in so they can get back to work as soon as possible. Case workers would match refugees with available positions and provide support for language and cultural barriers.
The idea was applauded by Amitabh Rajournia, the regional co-ordinator for humanitarian settlement services at SSI.
Following a similar ideas pitch session in November, the agency has started working with developers to make ideas a reality. Mr Rajournia said he planned to recommend some of the new ideas as well.
"The ideas here are fantastic. They are going to be very useful for refugees," Mr Rajournia said.
"It's really encouraging that Google and other big companies are interested in this. This means these ideas can actually materialise."
Michael Cullen, the director of economic development for Liverpool City Council, said fresh ideas on how to help refugees would benefit those who already lived in his region as well as new arrivals.
"We're not really sure where this new intake of refugees is coming at the moment, but we have a very large number of refugees who actually are already in our area, and it's very important that they are in jobs and in businesses," Mr Cullen said.
He envisioned refugees starting their own businesses, which Liverpool could become known for and which would attract visitors to the region.
"We see ourselves as very much a welcoming community," he said. "There's 140 different languages spoken in Liverpool, 150 different nationalities. So we see that as part of the strength of Liverpool. That's a great part of what we do, we welcome people."
