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Innovating with heart: April’s IRRA journey, personal connection to the mission and making a difference.

April with her husband, daughter and her son at Central Park, New York City

My IRC Life features incredible stories of people who make up the heart and soul of the International Rescue Committee. Come with us on a journey as we explore everyday lived experiences of the people who work at the IRC—their journeys of how they got here, career lessons, challenges and more.  

April Somboun is an education, research and innovation officer on our Airbel Impact Lab team, where they design, test and scale life-changing solutions for people affected by conflict and disaster. April has been with the IRC for close to two years, beginning her career as an Afghan Priority Two (P2) Program caseworker helping current and former eligible IRC staff apply for the P2 visa referrals to the U.S. government. Coming from a Laotian immigrant family, she shares with us her personal connection and passion and commitment to the IRC’s mission. We also discuss the exciting ways she and her team at the IRC are creating innovative solutions that are making a positive difference in people’s lives, surprising opportunities working within a humanitarian aid organization and pathways to career progression at the IRC

From caseworker to innovation officer: April’s career shift at the IRRA

With the encouragement of a former colleague, April joined the IRC as a caseworker. Within that role she not only found a profound connection and purpose to the mission but also a supportive manager who encouraged her to try new things. April gives us a glimpse into the exciting ways she is helping transform the lives of others.

A colleague I used to work with in a different nonprofit mentioned to me that IRC were looking for caseworkers. He knew this was an organization that I’ve always wanted to work for.  I was like, ‘yes, of course I want to help.’ My family and I are refugees too and the stories I heard from our clients we were serving were very meaningful to me.

My manager at the time encouraged me to apply for other job opportunities after the P2 program ended. She knew that my background had been in education and technology, and I wanted to make a career shift from marketing and fundraising to work directly on programs within the international sector. She mentioned the Airbel team and the work they're doing. So that's how I got into my current position.

On the Airbel Education Global Research and Innovation Priority (GRIP) team, we come up with new and innovative ways that can disrupt the humanitarian sector and positively impact people's lives. We test our ideas working hand in hand with the Airbel practices to find out if our projects meet our Social Return on Investment goals. It's a really cool business unit with tons of smart people. When some people think of the IRC, they think of humanitarian aid, like water, food, cash assistance, etc. But what people may not know is that we're also doing other projects behind the scenes to create solutions for those we serve in crises affected areas. When I share with my friends and family what I do, they're like, ‘What? That's humanitarian work?’ It’s not always front and center.

April with her two colleagues, Sheila Burkhardt and Brenda Nyakoa, on the Airbel Education GRIP team.

April's impact at the intersection of technology and humanitarian work: Power of Education and Artificial Intelligence

April shares with us the exciting new project she is working on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop an educational chatbot that has the potential to provide stability to the lives of students and educators impacted by a crisis. April reflects on her own experience as a refugee as she explains why this technology is so critical.

AI can be used as a very powerful tool to reach clients especially within the education sector. There are 224 million school-age children affected by crises globally. Based on these facts, we wanted to see how we could respond faster, quicker and support our teachers and their students worldwide with incredible IRC educational content that has been developed by the technical units and country teams. Our team created an AI-driven chatbot, called where our goal is to deploy learning experiences within 30 days or less of an onset crisis.