Description

For immigrants who have left one country and adopted another, an enduring question is how to give back, in some way, to the country and society they come from. This is especially a dilemma for those who come from lower income countries. Financial remittances, or the concept of sending money back home, are of course one solution and reached $540 billion in 2020. But what are some other important ways in which immigrants and diaspora communities can contribute to their home economies and societies? And how can we, as part of large global diasporas, have an impact not just where we have chosen to live and work, but also elsewhere?

Enter Localized, an organization and tech platform that helps connect highly accomplished immigrants in the diaspora with young and emerging talent and graduates in their home countries. This episode's guest is Ronit Avni, is the founder and CEO of Localized. A highly accomplished tech and media entrepreneur and Peabody award-winning producer, Ronit has been named a Young Global Leader through the World Economic Forum, a “New DC Power Woman in Tech,” has won dozens of media prizes, and her team’s work has been featured in nearly every major news outlet and viewed by tens of millions of people on TV, online and in influential settings from TED to the UN, and she has also appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show! Previously, Ronit founded the media organization Just Vision. Ronit sits on the jury of the MacArthur Foundation’s 100 & Change Competition and the Global Teacher Prize. 

Episode Themes

• How the Localized model leverages a tech platform to connect university students and recent graduates from emerging markets to industry experts and employers looking for top talent. 
• Rethinking the concept of brain drain, and how talent networks need to be global and distributed.
• Ronit's journey from an award-winning film producer to tech entrepreneur and what connects one to the other.
• Different ways in which immigrants and diaspora networks can have global impact through diaspora diplomacy and "knowledge remittances" that go beyond financial remittances.
• How Ronit's early experiences in Canada and the US have shaped her career and work with immigrants and diaspora communities, and why this is a lived experience for her.
• Ronit's reflections on lessons learned as a founder and what she wishes she had known when first starting out. She also shares her words of advice for young entrepreneurs and leaders that are just starting out. 

Episode Resources:

Follow Ronit and Localized on Twitter

Ronit's chapter on knowledge remittances in the Routledge International Handbook for Diaspora Diplomacy

My book:  America Calling: A Foreign Student in a Country of Possibility

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LinkedIn: @rajikabhandari

Twitter: @rajikabhandari