Monday, April 7, 2008

Shooting for the 100K

Assured Labor using cell phones help rate day-labor jobs

By Brendan Lynch

All of the work going into a startup in the MIT $100K Business Plan Competition may lead to a lot more work for people around the world.

Semifinalist Assured Labor's mobile phone-based platform is intended to bring transparency to labor markets in developing countries. Employers and employees can both log on to find each other quickly, based on the recommendations of previous users, similar to an eBay-style seller rating. The service is free for workers, but the MIT startup would charge employers to list jobs.

"Both sides know they're getting a good deal," said founder David Reich.

The service looks to bring efficiency to day-labor and low-wage jobs markets in developing countries. The goal is to identify and eventually reduce the number of employers who don't pay as well as the number of unreliable employees, Riech said.

Reich, a former mobile telecommunications industry analyst, developed the idea with his co-founders in a development-entrepreneurship class at the MIT Media Lab.

The company is targeting markets in India, China, Brazil and Africa, where Reich said 580 million low-wage employees have mobile phones. The next step is to decide where the beta test happens: in Boston or in a developing country.

Assured Labor has eight employees and has been running with the help of about $3,400 in grants from the MIT Media Lab and prize money from the MIT $100K.

Reich hopes to win the final round, but he'll be happy for whoever wins.

"Win or lose, we're going to go ahead and build this company," he said.