How can technology help in the refugee crisis?

Technology can help educate, inform and connect refugees, allowing them to integrate in their host countries and contribute to economic growth.

At a Friends of Europe event on 22 June, entrepreneurs and philanthropists set out how innovation was helping people to help themselves.

“This is a human rights issue,” said Jacquelline Fuller, President of Google.org and the Google Foundation. “We need to be welcoming as a global community.”

More than a million refugees arrived in Europe last year, most of whom ended up in transit camps, where tech giants such as Google have now begun providing wifi and laptops.

“Refugees need much more than shelter and food distribution,” said Jérémy Lachal, Director of Libraries Without Borders, which partnered with the UN’s refugee agency and designer Philippe Starck to create an “ideas box”, a portable library and media centre with its own internet connection and power source.

For Friends of Europe, fresh from launching a paper on how to solve the migration crisis, refugees can bring tangible benefits. “Our position on the issue of refugees and migrants is that they provide a net gain to our societies and communities – they don’t offer a net loss, as some would have us believe,” said Friends of Europe executive director Dharmendra Kanani.