This week with the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, we also lost another young woman who was such a bright light in the world, helping tens of thousands of people through her social and ethical entrepreneurship, all while fighting a brave battle against a rare form of cancer.
Leila Janah is a name that you need to know, if you didn’t already.
She was a serial entrepreneur who focused her career on ending global poverty, founding three organizations over her career working across the for-profit and non-profit sectors, including Samasource, Samaschool and Luxmi.
Leila’s motto at Samasource was “Give work”. She believed that the best thing you can do to help the global poor, especially women, was not giving charity, but allowing the underpriveliged to benefit economically from their time and talent. She believed that work is dignity. Work is empowerment. It is inclusion. And Samasource proved that everyone could contribute by going into some of the most difficult places on earth, connect them to the Internet, and pay them to provide services to the biggest tech companies in the world. Samasource was able to employ people from underserved areas to train artificial intelligence algorithms.
Samaschool, a non-profit program which she also founded teaches primarily low-income workers how to use freelance work to find financial stability or learn new skills through paid job experience. It’s the only organization where city governments officially direct welfare recipients who want to learn how to use flexible work to improve their circumstances.
AI, globalization and freelancing are all at the heart of the tech industry’s ethical battles and yet Leila had the compassion and the sharp intellect to create solutions in these areas that benefited thousands.
Leila was not only a tech entrepreneur, but she was also deeply connected to nature, which led her to create Luxmi, an ultra-clean skin care brand that uses impact-sourced botanicals that supports biodiversity and social justice.
I was lucky enough to introduce Leila on stage at the 2018 Sharjah Entrepreneurship festival where her speech inspired everyone present. She was so smart, so warm, very sharp and so creative, you couldn’t help but be drawn by her.
While her social media posts showed her persuing her passions, she also shared her ongoing battle with Epithelioid Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. Despite her battle, she always had a beeming smile, was always talking about her next project, and always sharing her hopes and dreams.
Leila Janah passed away on Thursday at the age of 37.
May her legacy and inspiration continue to live on long after she is gone.