Tech for good pills | Interview with Mursal Hedayat

Absolutely. So the problem Chatterbox is trying to solve is probably a problem that we've all encountered somewhere in our lives. You know, we're all pretty used to riding in cabs behind migrants from extraordinary educational and professional backgrounds who, once arriving to a new country, have their skills discounted. Or we all have family members perhaps who go on maternity or paternity leave and then after a few years out of work find that they are struggling to find work. And indeed, the origins of Chatterbox started from considering that problem of economic exclusion from the perspective of refugees. Because my family are refugees from Afghanistan, and I saw firsthand how despite having high levels of education and careers as civil engineers and academics, both of my parents were also kind of undermined in the labour market in the UK. And this is, you know, we're all— we've all grown a little bit immune to the fact that, you know, for some people opportunities don't come easy, and for some people they'll never be able to achieve what their skill and talent should allow them to achieve. And I think that today more than ever, this is an important issue looking far out into the, the next decade. The impacts of COVID-19 have clearly demonstrated the, the challenges of even some highly skilled workers in the economy being displaced and finding it difficult to get back into work after prolonged periods. And automation and disruptions from the Fourth Industrial Revolution will only make that worse. So I think this is a really critical time to get to grips with the problems with the labour market, the fact that for some people from some backgrounds or with some experiences, you can fall down a chute, but there are very few ladders to climb back up.

Yeah, and I think, you know, this is a major problem that is touching on, you know, many, many industries because, you know, every refugee or any marginalised professional will have their own specific expertise that they're struggling to make flourish. So how did you go about tackling such a very complex problem? Did you start from a specific point?

That's interesting. That's a good question to ask. I think obviously with businesses like Chatterbox or with new ideas, know, the environment of the moment compels you, and you should really be driven by trends and, and, you know, one-off moments that can kind of lead, lead to a business idea being more likely than ever to succeed. And about 5 years ago, Europe was facing what everyone called a refugee crisis. You know, there were— this is the summer, the summer that I started Chatterbox was the summer that the little boy Alan Kurdi was found face down on a beach in Turkey. So the crisis of migration, of forced migration, that some analysts predict will grow from already record levels to, you know, between 100 million and 1 billion displaced people worldwide, is, you know, was really coming to the forefront of policy discussions in Europe. And that's the year I graduated, or had graduated a few years previously from business school. And as I was kind of assessing the situation, having a real interest in developing a social enterprise model for business, what I observed is that the innovations in this space to support refugees, particularly with regards to employment, were very focused on the lower ends of the skill spectrum. So we had in the UK, where I'm from, programs to reintroduce refugees into work as bakers or as seamstresses or as florists or as tea sellers or as ice cream sellers. And this is all amazing. The energy of that moment was fantastic and has created so many brilliant startups. But for people like my parents, becoming a florist would have been, you know, a re-traumatization, having had the backgrounds in, you know, their academic and their professional lives that they built up their entire, their entire time previously to becoming refugees. And when you look at the data anywhere between 12.5% to 20% of refugees in European countries have higher levels of education and training. In some European countries, it's higher than the native population. So when you're trying to force everyone to fit into this low-skilled mold, you're not doing the economy of those countries or the refugees themselves justice. And so Chatterbox emerged as, you know, with an insight that there's a huge, invisible, highly skilled, motivated workforce that is currently being overlooked by businesses. And at the same time, looking at businesses which in this rapidly shifting economic time are increasingly looking further and further afield for the talent that they need. And, you know, I think the figure is 1 in 2 jobs today with technical skilled roles in particular go unfilled. And so there's a natural balance of meeting this demand with the highly skilled talent of people like my parents.

Yeah, and I mean, in this, you know, you have a big supply and you've got demand, and I think, you know, you started from language learning, is that correct?

It is indeed.

Yes, can you tell us a little bit why you started there, and then I'll ask you some questions, you know, how you're going about it?

Of course, so I mean, language learning is huge as an industry, as a market. Every one of us learns a language in our lives, or at least try to, and some of us learn more than one. And so the global market for language learning is worth about $350 billion. And within that, the online segment is growing at an accelerating pace thanks to COVID that analysts predict is going to grow by $22 billion between 2020 and 2024. So huge economic opportunities. And at the time, you know, over the last 5 years I've worked in edtech and in language learning in particular. And I think that language learning is best applied and studied with other human beings. I think that most of us have downloaded one of these apps, tried our best to make it work, and then deleted it 2 weeks later, or perhaps even a few hours later. But most of us don't succeed because having a human language coach is so important in the language learning experience for people that actually want to gain skills instead of playing a few games for a few hours. And so meeting, you know, this demand with the supply of talent, that of career relaunchers as we call them, you know, talented degree-educated professionals looking to get back into work, of which there are 40 million in the OECD countries alone, um, led to this blended model of learning that Chatterbox is innovating with and is now, uh, at some of the biggest corporates in the world.

Yeah, and I think, you know, this language learning together with the pairing that Chatterbox provides, I think it's a very good model where professionals that want to learn a language are exposed to people that have got a professional background that matches their own personal interests and passions, as well as the skills in the language they're interested in learning. And this can create a very good kind of two-way coaching experience. experience, I understand, which elevates everyone involved. And I think, you know, I was exploring a little bit Chatterbox's solution, and what I found very interesting is the way you describe it also even today. You said this is a human-centered approach where kind of the value that people bring is is really critical. And you describe it as an assisted learning platform. So I think, you know, it's very interesting to see this synergy between the human element and the technology element as an enabler. And, you know, I wanted to ask you about how you're thinking about this combination of human power, human value together with technology? And what do you think the two things are best at?

So, I mean, my co-founder and I are fundamental believers that over time we'll see the value of technology alone declining, declining. The defensibility of tech is, I think there's some great research on how you know, the timelines of being able to replicate tech platforms is just getting shorter and shorter. Ultimately, for us, the value of the future internet is the community of people products can bring together. And so we're very human-centered product builders and designers anyway. But when you look at language learning in particular, it's perhaps the most human vocation or learning of all, right? We're talking about building or a system to communicate with one another. And so the idea that you can do that effectively through machines that will always be one step behind the kind of spoken word of the day just seems, seems a little bit silly looking back now. Um, and, and not just for the issues with actually learning languages without humans, but also from the motivational issues. So, um, there are, you know, You can describe language learning as being motivated instrumentally through achieving goals or integratively through a desire to get close to other people and cultures. And the reason we learn a language in the very first time when we pick up our first few words as human beings is via integrative motivation. We don't have an intention to it other than to grow close to our primary caregivers. So that real powerful urge that you feel when, you know, you're sitting around a dinner table with 8 other people and they're all speaking French, and at that moment you've never wanted to speak French more in your life. That's the feeling that we want to bring out at Chatterbox because we feel like, you know, putting the fluency and the pedagogic benefits of human-to-human language learning to one side, the motivational piece is one of the most challenging aspects of language learning. And to do that through, as you said, human connections, and not just that, but algorithmically matched human connections between 2 people, fellow professionals with similar personal and professional backgrounds. This is our kind of contribution to language learning, and it's really paying off in terms of the learner engagement that we're seeing and the satisfaction of our customers.

Okay, thank you, Mursal. And we got to the point in the interview where I usually ask our guests to share a best practice, something that they've learned along the way that they think that other founders or other practitioners in the tech for good space can benefit from. Do you have a learning that you think would be applicable to the experiences of other founders as well?

I think so. So I was thinking about this, and honestly, you know, there's so many different perspectives on, you know, the right way to do good in the world and the right way to have a positive impact, and so many different, you know, formats for that. As an entrepreneur who always wanted my work to have a positive impact in the world, you know, I've come to recognize that some of the most transformational technologies are not the ones that have, you know, B Corp status. Some of the most transformational technologies have been, you know, Facebook and Instagram— forgetting the parent company's behavior. Having the ability to connect with people from around the world has created a generation of young people that are, you know, able to understand and communicate and form friendships with one another. And that is probably one of the biggest transformational social shifts, positive shifts, that I can think of. To have more connection between people in the world. So I guess my kind of top tip is to not shy away from commercial models for social impact, to not get too bogged down into thinking that to do good you have to be serving 100 of the hardest-to-reach people in the world. That has its place, and charitable models take care of that kind of impact very well. But in the field of social enterprise, I think more founders and more business creators could think big and really think as ambitiously about the social impact that they want to have as some of the largest commercial enterprises in the world, because building large commercial enterprises isn't antithesis to social impact.

Okay, thank you, Mursal. I think this is a very important important learning because you're right that, you know, when we are talking about doing social good with technology, I think, you know, there is always this idea that you need to fit the model to, you know, the ambition, while sometimes, you know, you can deliver on that ambition even by traditional business models. And I think there have been very, very strong examples of that, as you say. I think, you know, I'll just pause here for a second, just encouraging our guests to submit questions if you have them, because, you know, as I said, we'll be able to pick those questions up and ask Mursal. But in the meantime, so we talked about bringing, you know, giving the opportunity to this refugee talents to really use their skills and get back into their careers and starting from language learning. But I wanted to ask you, what is next for Chatterbox? How are you thinking about the future?

So, I mean, today Chatterbox helps not just refugees, but other groups of people who we consider, you know, career relaunchers, people who are rebuilding their professional lives after taking career breaks, either because they became refugees or because they became parents or their industry shifted. So we've already kind of broadened out the social impact that we're having in the world, taking lessons from the refugee community to help other groups of marginalized workers. But I think what's really interesting for both my co-founder and I over the past year since we launched our corporate language learning service is that by simply providing an environment to recognize the skill and potential of candidates who companies would not normally consider for jobs, by simply acting as a kind of a believer, a guarantor of their abilities, companies are increasingly coming to us to actually hire from our talent pipeline. You know, I won't name names, but, you know, some of the top you know, companies in the world are now looking at Chatterbox's own recruitment funnel as a source for their future talent. And that's extremely, extremely exciting from both a social impact perspective, but also from a commercial perspective. So that's something that we'll be looking to develop with our corporate partners over the next 12 months, as well as scaling the language learning business as it currently stands.

Okay, thank you, Mursal. I think, you know, and I wanted to ask you about kind of the way you're thinking about, you know, what you mentioned. So this idea of kind of serving your social purpose together with a viable business model. I think, you know, this is a very good tip, I think, for the guests, for the for our audience. I wanted to ask you if you could elaborate a little bit on that. Because the way I think sometimes it's difficult for founders that are mission-driven is to really make their business shine. So kind of going towards the requests, if you want, from profit-oriented world, but also kind of serving and making sure they stay close to the purpose that they started their organization with. So how do you think, you know, a founder which is mission-driven can balance these 2 forces most effectively? And how have you done it in your experience?

So for my co-founder and I, it was a process of triangulating what was necessary for the vision that we wanted to achieve, right? We wanted to build a tech platform that can reintegrate, you know, hundreds of thousands of people back into work. We wanted to have a big social impact and building a tech platform in particular, one in as competitive a space as language learning and talent sourcing is going to require a lot of upfront capital and to develop, as well as capital ongoing to maintain it and keep its competitive edge and viability. Um, so, you know, just within the realm of that concept means that most likely the funding that we need is going to be VC, VC capital. And so we— the business needs to pivot towards that model. What helped is that we started with the social problem at heart. So you know, even before, you know, our last funding round and so on, I'd been researching the challenges that refugees face in the labor market for a year, validating the impact model to start, validating that creating an early job opportunity in the online language learning space actually had an impact on the future career prospects of the people that we work with. And once demonstrating that, then we expand. Okay, well, if that's true, then what will it take for people to buy their talent? Um, and, and so on and so on, leading to the model it came from. So I think potentially starting with impact and then going on to the next logical steps to solve the problem that you initially, initially started with, and then thinking very seriously about whether the model that's necessary to bring that solution to life is a commercial one a charitable one, somewhere in between, what sort of money you're going to need, if any, to make it happen. Those thoughts come last, but they're also just as important. If we had done something a bit smaller, perhaps Chatterbox would not have worked.

Yeah, no, I can definitely see kind of your 2 points on this. So on one hand, do start with impact, at the same time be clear and don't disregard the importance of the profit element, which is necessary for the sustainability of the organization. And I think it's very important to be very clear in someone's mind about different options potentially to take, and don't try to go in between, because I think this it could be different, difficult, could be a difficult path. And so, Mursal, you know, with this, I would like to thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing your experience at Chatterbox. I think your journey is a very inspiring one. So I and we as a Tech for Good community will look closely as you continue to develop Chatterbox. So best of luck for everything.

Thank you so much. And thank you for having me.

Pleasure. So thanks again, Mursal. And thank you all for being with us tonight at Tech for Good Tales. And the recording of our episode will be available on YouTube channel— on our YouTube channel in just a few seconds. But please check out our next appointments in the graphics that will appear after the interview. And thank you again for following us. Good evening. Good evening.