We invite you to an evening at the beautiful members club Home House on Tuesday, August 2 from 7:00 - 9:30pm to understand the Syrian refugee crisis and how the tech community is responding. All proceeds of the tickets will benefit Refugee Open Ware. The evening will feature a panel with entrepreneurs and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on how tech applications can address issues arising from the refugee crisis. Technologies discussed include blockchain, 3D printing, skillsmatching, etc. We will also feature an art and photography exhibit on refugees.

Tickets on donation basis. Suggested donation is £20, but give what you can and enter amount in the price field when you click on "get tickets."

PROGRAM

Doors open at 7pm.
7:30-7:40: Keynote speech from Asem Hasna

7:40-8:30pm: Speaker panel, featuring entrepreneurs whose startups are involved in the crisis followed by Q&A

8:30-8:40pm: Live stream of Refugee Info Bus from Calais camp in France

8:40-8:50pm: Presentation of Solidarity App

8:50pm-9:30pm: Networking, mingling, art show and raffle prizes.

SPEAKERS

Keynote - Asem Hasna: Our keynote speaker is Asem Hasna, a 22 year old Syrian refugee, who lost his leg while serving as a parademic. Asem escaped to Amman, Jordan, where he received medical help and became involved with Refugee Open Ware, an organization based in Jordan, Turkey, and Berlin that is bringing 3D printing and maker spaces to conflict zones and refugee camps. Through Refugee Open Ware, Asem learned to program, design and print his own prosthetics. As Jordan became less hospital to refugees, Asem fled to Europe through Greece and is now settled in Berlin, where he continues to work at Refugee Open Ware, teaching young refugees programming and helping other refugees become makers. See Asem's Ted Talk here:

Panelist - Bernino Lind is an advisor to MONI, a Finnish mobile payments and digital identity startup that partnered with the Finnish Immigration Service to provide a platform for refugees to send and receive money, as many refugees are not eligible to open bank accounts without proper papers. More than 5,000 refugees have signed up for the platform, which has also partnered with Mastercard to provide pre-paid debit cards.

Panelist - Julian Bentz is a Co-Founder of StartupBoat, which is a global, mobile think tank that supports local changemakers seeking to start projects involving the refugee community through providing talent support, tech expertise and funding. Julian also founded Migration Hub, an idea born out of a StartupBoat session. Migration Hub is a free Co-working space in Berlin and Athens for those working on solutions to migration issues. Julian is a social entrepreneur and passionated about building and creating things. He is a successful event manager and has organized festivals in Germany and Spain with more than 30,000 guests.

Panelist - Joséphine Goube is named as one of the 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneur of 2016 by Forbes and is COO at Techfugees, a social enterprise coordinating the tech community's answer to the refugee needs. Before that, she used to work at Migreat, building an AI online to help migrants apply to visas to Europe.

Panelist - Saalim Chowdhury is the founder of the freelancer marketplace Skillbridge, which was recently acquired by Toptal, where he is the Chief Strategy Officer. He is currently also an entrepreneur in residence at 500 Startups.

Panelist - Alper Dincer is part of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (EBRD) economic inclusion team. He supports the design, appraisal and monitoring of investment projects in order to enhance youth, gender and regional inclusion in a wide-range of developing countries spanning from Central Asia to North Africa. Before joining the EBRD, Alper was the Thomas J. Alexander Fellow at the OECD and the research coordinator of Education Reform Initiative at Sabanci University, Istanbul. Alper holds a PhD in Economics and Education from Columbia University and his interests lie at the intersections of skills formation, inequality and development.

Panelist - Sarah Story founded Refugee Info bus with Rowan Farrell in the Calais refugee camp in the North of France, which provides free internet access via wifi and onboard tablets and laptops. The mobile WIFI allows 200 people at one time to access the internet for free and to contact their families. The bus also offers multilingual legal information and refugee rights workshops, in addition to encouraging refugee-led journalism and story writing, helping refugees tell their own story through written testimony and multimedia.

Moderator - Prof. Guy S. Goodwin-Gill is Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Emeritus Professor of International Refugee Law, University of Oxford, and a Barrister at Blackstone Chambers, London, where he practises in public international law generally, and in human rights, citizenship, refugee and asylum law. He has worked with the United Nations, including twelve years with UNHCR, has advised the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Carter Center on elections and international law, was President of the Media Appeals Board of Kosovo from 2000–2003, and has acted as Specialist Adviser to Committees of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. He is an Honorary Associate of the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford, a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the University of New South Wales, and an Honorary Senior Fellow of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne.

Speakers subject to change. Cash bar to maximize proceeds to ROW while keeping event accessible.

Solidarity App - Martin Morrillo is the founder of Solidarity App, the philanthropy hack that allows everyone to make donations without paying a cent. They make small donations to positive impact initiatives, every time someone tests a free game or app from Solidarity App. They are currently supporting three Refugee Open Ware campaigns and the Spanish committee of UNHCR, among other initiatives and NGOs cleaning the environment, defending animals rights or supporting zones in disaster relief. See Solidarity App's video here:

VENUE: House 21 House Lounge - we will be in this room!

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT

This event will feature an art and photography exhibit centered on the refugees, with works donated by award-winning artists: documentary photographs that capture refugees in difference conflict zones donated by a Japanese American photographer, Q Sakamaki, a thematic framed art piece donated by a Russian contemporary visual Artist, Nadezhda "Nadya" Yakustidi, and a painting inspired by the image of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy on the beach, from British contemporary visual artist, Nick Grindrod. All pieces of art available for raffle and proceeds to benefitRefugee Open Ware.

Nadezhda Yakustidi (Russian, b.1967) best knows as Nadya, is a Russian-born artist, currently residing and working in Athens, Greece. She is a distinguished awardee of the International Union of Artists and is a respectable member of the Russian Union of Artists. Having lived in Greece for over 10 years and having closely observed the affect of refugee crisis on the Greek Islands, Nadya is a strong supporter of finding effective multi-stakeholder solutions to eradication of people's suffering and rebuilding of civilians' lives.

Q. Sakamaki (Japanese, b.1958) is a Japanese-born, New York-based photographer who began covering international issues in the mid-1990s, photographing everything from war zones to earthquake victims all over the world, in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Kosovo, Haiti, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Turkey, Georgia, and Sudan. Q has received numerous awards throughout his career, including a World Press Photo First Prize for a People in the News story (2007), two Overseas Press Club awards (Olivier Rebbot in 2007, and Feature Photography in 2010), and two Days Japan International Photojournalism awards.

Nick Grindrod is a painter and artist living and working in the UK. He uses a range of mediums but primarily he works in acrylic. He is donating his painting, "By the time they found I'd already gone," a homage to Aylan Kurdi, the little Syrian boy found on the beach. Of the painting, Nick says, "I usually lead by the process and not just the idea. My work is very visceral but in this instance the image of Aylan Kurdi lying lifeless on that beach stirred a paternal response in me. Since these early images so many more heart felt stories have been heard and no doubt many more still left untold. These people are inspirational in so many ways. "

Links

Refugee Open Ware: http://www.row3d.org/

MONI: https://moni.com/

Home House: http://homehouse.co.uk