By JP Candiotti
I have a passion and skill for building local eco-systems and connecting networks and resources to help people use their talents for personal and economic growth. With the help of Kevin Jones and Transform, we are on a quest to accelerate the transition of refugees into Nordic societies. It is an endeavor that aims just not to improve quality of life of migrants but also to discover new methods and processes that will allow migrants to give back to host cities and nations. Since 2017 I have empowered more than 100 refuges in cooperation with different educational institutions, municipalities and businesses at the local, regional and inter-continental level.
Among other experiences, I have designed the Refugee Entrepreneurship Sweden program and Digital Inclusive Entrepreneurship Scandinavia, a program funded by the Nordics Ministers Council.
We believe that it is important to fund the work of the “man in the middle” one step removed from direct impact, who catalyzes the whole ecosystem. This system entrepreneur has obtained a certain level of trust to be able to hear the gains and pains of refugees and newly arrived migrants as well as understanding integration into local eco-systems and broader society. This connection to both sides permits us to design new processes and methods to experiment and pursue systems change that can be replicable in similar contexts. The development of an open source interactive topic map of Refugee Knowledge could be beneficial for refugees in Sweden to show the actors, the players and their relations in different cities as to show local resources. This is especially good due to the high mobility of refugees in Sweden. It can be beneficial for institutions and academics that pursue solving wicked problems as integration and wealth creation.