Kathryn Lucatelli
Kathryn Lucatelli met Jeremy Hockenstein in 2000, when he’d just returned from Cambodia, excited about the people he'd met. By the end of their meeting she had a backpack full of his personal history—from bar mitzvah savings bonds to passwords—to serve as his personal assistant. When she moved back to Michigan, he asked if she wanted to go to Cambodia and meet King Norodom Sihanouk. She flew over with two of Jeremy’s friends, and the group together explored which social venture might be helpful in Cambodia. "It felt like we could do anything," she says.
The idea evolved iteratively. A contact in India taught them the business of data entry with double entry verification, where two people type the same content so English proficiency doesn't matter. Jeremy got their first job from the Harvard Crimson. An early crisis came when a high-profile newspaper article suggested that Harvard was taking advantage of cheap Cambodian labor. It ended up generating positive publicity for DDD, and more work, because it forced them to articulate their double bottom line of creating opportunities for young people. Kathryn lived in Cambodia for four years as staff grew from 20 to 200 people, all in the same original building. One woman, Nalek, had three fingers on each hand but was one of the fastest typists and eventually came to the U.S. What struck her most was how dutiful and even self-sacrificing DDD’s employees were—young people who became breadwinners supporting siblings and parents.
