Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today, we welcome Justin Richmond, who describes the Impl. Project, a non-profit Justin founded which brings together professional expertise from the fields of diplomacy, development, and technology. The Impl. The project is known for community-led, data-driven solutions for international development and stability.
Connect with Justin Richmond on LinkedIn.
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Transcript:
00:00:00 SPEAKER_04
These communities have an incredibly high threshold, a high tolerance for insecurity. So if they're the ones saying that it's dangerous, that's pretty bad. It's kind of like if people on the south side of Chicago were saying, man, security is really a big issue. You're like, wow, this isn't like rural America. This isn't like suburbia. You guys have lived in an insecure environment for a long time. If you're saying that this is bad even by your own standards, then why? We got to unpack why.
00:00:39 SPEAKER_01
Hi, welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by Justin Richman. He is the founder and executive director of Imple Project. Before starting Imple Project, Justin worked as a forward -deployed engineer at Palantir Technologies. where he led field implementation during both the Typhoon Haiyan and Typhoon Hagapit responses in the Philippines. Previously, he served two tours in Afghanistan as USAID's District Stability Framework Coordinator, mentoring joint civilian -military Afghan teams on stabilization implementation in eastern Afghanistan. Prior to USAID, he served in the Army as a Special Operations Team Leader in the southern Philippines, focusing on stabilization, counterinsurgency, and information operations. Justin Richman, welcome to the 1CA Podcast.
00:01:28 SPEAKER_04
Thanks, John. I appreciate you having me.
00:01:30 SPEAKER_01
And we'll note for the audience that you're on daddy duty right now, recording from a park somewhere in the country, and we appreciate your time.
00:01:39 SPEAKER_04
Of course. Happy to do it.
00:01:41 SPEAKER_01
We want to talk about what you're doing at Imple Project. And for our listeners, that's spelled I -M -P -L. You said you pronounce it simple without the S.
00:01:53 SPEAKER_04
That's right. And looking back, I think I probably could have done a better job on the branding. But I wanted to make it pretty simple and straightforward. The focus of the organization is implementation and execution of tasks on the ground. I think the biggest frustration I had with civil society when I was both in the military and with USAID was there's always just so much talk and people aren't getting out there in the tough places and doing the hard work. That's the reason we started the NGO.
00:02:22 SPEAKER_01
That's awesome. Well, that was leading to my question about the mission. So that's how you started it. What would you say is the mission of the organization?
00:02:31 SPEAKER_04
So, yeah, the mission of the organization is really to focus on, like, sustainable, solid development work in the most vulnerable communities. So the gaps that we identified, myself, the other founders, one of whom was a civil affairs. officer back in the time leading up to 2010. The gaps that we identified were, number one, a lack of bad work, a lack of really understanding what the local communities needed and how to deliver it. The next thing that we saw, though, was that civil society wasn't doing a very good job at all of identifying which communities needed their work the most. I think anybody who's been deployed... can honestly look at their deployment and say, my goodness, we did a few good things, but I don't know if we did it in the right areas. Getting State Department, USAID, NGO partners to program alongside civil affairs teams has just been really difficult, partly because civil affairs teams tend to operate much farther beyond the comfort zone, the safety zone of civil society. So those are the gaps that we're looking to address, and I think we're doing a pretty good job.
00:03:45 SPEAKER_01
That's great. So I think that helps to answer a follow -up question I was going to have, which is how is the Imple Project different from other development nonprofits? So what are you doing that's new or better than others?
00:03:56 SPEAKER_04
A number of things. And I don't feel arrogant saying that. The places that we work, we have better data, we have better fundamental understanding of what's going on in these communities. It's partly because when I came out of Afghanistan, my biggest bone to pick was how we were doing work. was that we were spending so much money, but we really didn't understand the communities that we were working in. Even key terrain districts, which were strategic priorities, we just really didn't understand it. Outside of a couple people sharing some anecdotes, that's it. People will talk about the notes that they took at Ashura, and they spent $3 million according to those notes. I mean, that's not a representative sample of the community. So we really built this. After USAID, I went to Palantir for two years to really learn how to do data. And it was a great lesson for me.
00:04:42 SPEAKER_00
USAID, I went
00:04:47 SPEAKER_04
lesson for me. Granted, I kind of stuck out like a sore thumb, a 35 -year -old combat vet working at a Silicon Valley company. But it was a great experience. And that was what kind of led us to say, we can apply these things very rigorously with a live NGO. So let's try. That's cool. So the data side of it's huge.
00:05:10 SPEAKER_04
There's two more aspects that I think are pretty unique. One is that we work in really non -permissive environments. So we were the first international NGO back in Benghazi. In fact, this time last year, I had a team. Sorry, my son's really excited about going down the slide. Yeah, this time last year, I took a team of six expats into Benghazi, hired 45 Libyans, and we did the largest data mapping. of Benghazi ever 4500 face -to -face surveys another two three dozen focus group discussions key leader engagements and had a better understanding of the dynamics of Benghazi than anyone period so like we're able to create data scale really really quickly and work in areas that are really really tough so and these clients are for DoD USAID
00:06:03 SPEAKER_01
these clients are for DoD USAID
00:06:06 SPEAKER_04
across the board. Right now, if you were to look at our funding structure, it is pretty much even between State Department, USAID, DOD, and then private sector firms. We are waiting on a couple procurements right now that will then upset the balance. It looks like DOD is going to come out on top, and that's probably the thing that, that's the third thing that makes this kind of special. We will partner much more closely with... U .S. military or post -nation military than almost any other NGO that I know of will. And the reason is because we're not neutral. We completely believe that that's an antiquated paradigm. And I'll work with the military. I'll work with whomever is working in the best interest of the community. That's where my allegiance lies. Of the local community.
00:06:56 SPEAKER_01
the local community. Okay. Even if that's against U .S. interests.
00:07:00 SPEAKER_04
It usually isn't. I've never run into an example of where what's in the best interest of the community was not in the best interest of the United States. Now, the thing that I run into more often than that is when the U .S. doesn't know what the community actually wants, what they need, and so they don't know what the interests of the community are. That's the thing that I run into the most because, quite frankly, the people that are making a lot of decisions, whether it's the AOB, it's the SOTUS, it's the embassy, they almost never... They almost never get out to these rural communities. And we were working in Tillaberry, Niger, two weeks before the SF guys were killed there last year, or I guess almost a year and a half ago now in Tongo Tongo. So we were working in Tillaberry, and it was a really, really rough environment. And the problem was, you know, for us. We were telling people how dangerous it was, but people weren't really spending enough time with communities to get the sort of buy -in that they needed to have the type of protection. And essentially people telling them like, hey, today's a good day to come out here or today is a horrible day to come out here. Don't do it. There's a lot of bad guys waiting for you. So, you know, and that's one of the reasons that... we're able to operate in these environments is because we're closely partnered with the communities themselves. And whether they like U .S.
00:08:16 SPEAKER_03
And whether
00:08:17 SPEAKER_04
they like U .S. forces or not, they like us because we're actually bringing value. And once again, as a civil affairs person, civil affairs teams are able to bring value where other military assets are not.
00:08:30 SPEAKER_01
Good point. Let me ask you one other question, then we'll go to break. You talk about data collection. There are a lot of tools for data collection. So what does Invol use, and what kind of difficulties have you seen in infrastructure around the world when you're trying to collect data in remote areas?
00:08:47 SPEAKER_04
Sure. This is an easy question. It's actually a softball for me. So, look, when it comes to data collection, people need to understand what is the point, what is the so what that they're trying to get out of any sort of data collection. So, like, we have standardized our hardware. We use all. apple ipads or iphones we use commercial software to do the data collection it's able to do it disconnected so that that application is called a quick tap survey and then we also put that data into the socom instance of palantir nipper so like that's kind of the way we string all this together you know all this stuff has to work every time so if you're doing data collection first off if you're doing it by paper and pen you're already wrong because the time and energy you're going to waste coding that data into a spreadsheet is just waste of time it's No one's got the time and energy to do that, so having something that you can essentially do all the data management and knowledge management online in the cloud, that's exactly where you want to be. So those are the tools we use, and we spend a lot of time testing this. I mean, rural Niger, 2 ,300 surveys in 10 days. In Benghazi, Libya, 4 ,400 face -to -face in, I think, 15 days. And the reason that we were able to create that data scale is because we spent so much time honing the actual process.
00:10:13 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Wow, that's a lot of output. It is. But this is the thing.
00:10:17 SPEAKER_04
is the thing. If you, as a CA Bob, would come up to me and say, hey, look, I'm really interested in opening Benghazi up again. But, you know, the funding stream that we're talking about is only focused on youth. How much do we have for youth? Then from that 4 ,400, if I start disaggregating, you can say, you know, or I can say to you, well, you know. Of the 4 ,400, 2 ,400 are under the age of 30. So we still have enough data scale and just samples that we can make some really good analysis based upon that data. Whereas if you only do 1 ,000 surveys and you're now only looking at doing women, well, you're now down to 500. Or you're only doing youth and you're at like 600.
00:10:59 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, for all the Barrick statisticians, you need enough sample size and the power of the data you're collecting to be able to extrapolate.
00:11:07 SPEAKER_04
You really do. And the problem is that, number one, the U .S. government doesn't know how to procure data collection at all. It's horrible at it. It doesn't know how to set the proper requirements. They don't know what it looks like. And so, in fact, we're getting called in for a certain monitoring and evaluation baseline. and a program assessment for a USAID project. And they're like, yeah, you know, we're happy with a, you know, a 99 % confidence interval with a 6 % margin of error. And I was like, really? Like you spent millions of dollars on that project and you're comfortable with that? Because I'm not. When we were in Benghazi, we had a 99 % confidence interval with a less than 2 % margin of error. If I'm going to be operating in a really dangerous place and spending other people's money, I want to have a really... good understanding that, like, this is what the dads say. This is how we can help communities.
00:12:00 SPEAKER_01
That's good use of American taxpayer dollars.
00:12:03 SPEAKER_04
Well, I mean, we've all seen when people have been bad stewards. So, you know, we're absolutely trying to correct that. And the good news is when you have that much data scale, you can come back to it. Like, if there are other questions, you know, we can come back and ask these things after the fact. We thought working with the youth was going to be a really good idea. Man, it turns out the women are the real power placer in this community. Can we go back and we look at what the women say? Well, yeah, when you collect enough data, you can. And you can really start doing first order, second order, third order planning and set those benchmarks that all programs require. Good deal.
00:12:41 SPEAKER_01
deal. Folks, you've been listening to an interview with Justin Richman, founder and executive director of Imple Project. We'll be right back and ask Justin about... the experiences with projects in the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Stay tuned.
00:12:59 SPEAKER_01
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