Filling out hundreds of documents and an endless to-do list: getting started as an expat in a European country is anything but easy. Many migrants get caught up in the red tape and therefore don’t even begin the faraway journey. Shane Yankam himself was once a migrant from Cameroon who took the plunge and started studying and then working in Germany. He then moved to the Netherlands to start a business. With Consul, based in Venlo, he helps employees from all over the world migrate without any problems. We spoke to him about his company.
What problem are you solving with your company?
“I’m from Cameroon myself and I know that job seekers in Africa and Asia are struggling. There are too few opportunities and too much competition in the job market. On average, a person in India has to compete with a lot of others for the same job. At the same time, Western countries need skilled workers to keep their economies running. These can come from outside Europe. But for immigrants, this is a difficult, convoluted, and expensive process with scammers promising visas. We leverage artificial intelligence to remedy that problem. For example, a nurse in Cameroon looking to move to the Netherlands, who would otherwise need to contact a relocation agency and pay over 8,000 euros upfront, can now use Mira. By messaging our AI agent via WhatsApp on her phone, she can manage the entire relocation process on her own.”
So how exactly does that work?
“Mira streamlines the entire job search and relocation process, guiding users through every step of the journey. The vast majority of people looking to emigrate don’t understand how the process works. So after explaining the process, Mira provides the user with a list of jobs that match their competence. Once a job seeker chooses a job, Mira asks for relevant documents, such as diplomas, degrees, and a birth certificate. For users who either do not have a CV or provide one that does not conform to European standards, we built some technology that generates a suitable CV. Throughout this process, the candidate can ask questions about the various aspects of immigration. This all happens on WhatsApp. Mira sends the documents to the employer. In case of a positive response, she then schedules an appointment at the consulate in the candidate’s country and preps the candidate for the day.”
What about the costs?
“A conventional relocation agency charges between €8,000 and €15,000 per company, and for B2C they charge on average about €5,000 to €10,000 because they do almost every step of the process manually. We automate about 180 steps. As a result, a company pays an average of €3000.”
What technology is behind this?
“We use artificial intelligence. The first layer is a conventional AI model, OpenAI, which is trained on general data. This allows our agent to speak almost any language. If someone starts speaking French on WhatsApp, Mira switches immediately. On top of this base layer, we built and trained our own model specifically on country-specific regulations. This allows us to provide accurate and relevant information to our clients based on each country’s specific immigration rules.”
Workers from what industries use Mira?
“High-demand professions. Think about nurses, factory workers, and truck drivers. I’ve seen many different occupations come by. And we haven’t even officially launched yet.”
What has been the biggest challenge so far?
“Providing enough direction. We received a lot of criticism on the first version of our chat feature. People felt that Mira didn’t offer sufficiently detailed guidance during conversations and that the explanations about emigration were too general. We invested significant effort into refining the conversations and limiting the number of options available to users at any given time.”
What are you most proud of so far?
“I am especially proud of the idea. As Charlie Munger would say, there’s something elusive that happens in the brain when you come across a truly great idea. If you’re lucky, you get one every year or two. Many of my ideas have failed, teaching me some bitter lessons along the way.
But now, we’ve already attracted over a thousand individual users and a few business clients even before our official launch. People keep sharing it with their friends and so on. It shows that we are solving a very real problem with Mira. Hopefully, our solution can enable people from the Global South to fully partake in wealth creation over the next decade.”
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