Leila Janah, who died in 2020, founded Samasource, LXMI and Samaschool over the course of a career built around what she called 'impact sourcing,' routing digital work to people in low-income communities rather than treating poverty reduction as a matter of aid.
Samasource provided digital training and outsourced technical work to people in underprivileged regions, giving workers a route into the digital economy that didn't depend on where they happened to be born.
Her underlying argument was that dignity and sustainable income mattered more than charity, and that technology, deliberately pointed at inclusion, could make the digital economy accessible to people it would otherwise overlook.