NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Upon finishing his doctorate in design in Italy and traveling the world for work and research, Pakistani technologist Musstanser Tinauli came back to his homeland and began looking for a business idea that would bring about positive economic change in a region where about a quarter of people live below the poverty line.

With Pakistan’s literacy rate low and internet access scarce, Tinauli noticed that low-skilled workers such as drivers and plumbers relied on small hourly jobs that they were getting through word-of-mouth referrals or waiting in public squares for potential employers to stop by and ask for their service. The process was random and uncoordinated, he says.

“People got eight to 10 jobs a month (at most),” Tinauli says.

It was then that he began envisioning a better system, using a platform that would bring offline workers to the World Wide Web, connect them to employers and make their skills visible to anyone who needs their expertise.