Our project manager Rene Parker asked me to give her the number of people Rlabs has trained up thus far,as  she needed to put it in a report. The total I  gave to her was more than 70 people and she said that I must take another look at this total as she felt that there were far more people that we’ve trained. When I did an in depth investigation I was shocked to see how many people we have actually trained.

This is the stats we got:

Senior Citizen 47 females 3 males =50

MOM2.0 =10

MOM3.0 =20

Reconstructed 2008 2 females 12 males =14

Reconstructed 2009 10 males

Reconstructed 2010 5 males

Social Media for Teens 8 females 12 males = 20

Social Media for social Change Workshop 19 females 1 male =20

Social Media Surgery 47 people

Advice Support Network 15 females 40 males = 55

NGO training 5 females 20 males = 25

=276 trainees 127 males 149 females

Vodacom and RLabs have teamed up to bring you the “Community Information Challenge 2010″. Many people in local communities have mobile phones and use them for voice and text. However, the use of mobile Internet is growing fast and can be used to enhance local communities. The mobile Internet can be used to share many types of information around the globe but there is often difficulty in finding local and relevant information.

The Community Information Challenge is looking for innovative and fresh ideas, on how local and relevant information can be accessed and shared, with the local community. The solution must be deployable in South Africa but is not restricted to this region. The winning entry will receive a one-off prize of R20,000 cash AND the opportunity to discuss deployment options with the Vodacom Innovation team. The overall winner across the three Vodacom Challenges will scoop up a further R 20,000 cash!

Entry Criteria:

* Entrants must be registered as a developer in the Betavine Community
* Entries need to be submitted in English
* Entries must be designed to be deployable in South Africa (but not restricted to this region)

For more information about this challenge visit the Vodafone Betavine website.

For this couple of weeks to come I will be part of the SM Factory team that will do a Social Media campaign for Nu Metro (movie house) who will release a movie called “I Now Pronounce You Black and White“. I am excited to be part of a team that will be doing and driving a campaign for South Africa’s first Romantic Comedy under Ollywood Productions. I Now Pronounce You Black and White (INPYBAW) will be at your nearest Cinemas  14 May 2010. As we build up to the releasing date we want you to stay tuned as we are giving away prizes.

We will keep you updated on the twitter stream and facebook page

“I Now Pronounce You Black and White” Plot Outline:

When two people fall in love and get married it is a joyous occasion, right? Wrong!
When Simon Dawson (Tyrel Meyer) and his black girlfriend, Jackie Msolisi (Astara Mwakalumbwa) announce their engagement, Simon’s racist, white parents are furious. Felix Dawson (Ian Roberts), a staunch Afrikaner, and his pretentious, Jewish wife Sheila (Bo Petersen), are determined not to let their son “marry the help”.

Jackie’s parents, Pauline and Clarence Msolisi (Sylvia Mdunyelwa & Kwezi Kobus) are equally appalled by their daughter’s decision to marry “a Whitey”. Pauline vows to stop the wedding at any cost.
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU BLACK AND WHITE is a hilariously fun film, full of outrageous characters that will make your family look like the Brady Bunch, as true love tries to conquer all, against all odd.

Friday Rlabs welcomed the 2009 social media graduates from the mom2.0 and the reconstructed sessions. This class was facilitated by Terence and the team of Rlabs. The session on Friday the team took them back where they started by in the early day’s emailing (gmail), and just added Google calendar to their repertoire.

This will be an interesting year for these students some of them will be part of social media factory that we launching very soon

Every second week we will be hosting a group of school girls for the introduction to social media and the various tools on the World Wide Web. The social media classes forms part of their life skills for the year. These sessions  will be facilitated by 2009 mom2.0 graduate Rae Goedeman. Rae is a widow from the Bridgetown Community, who has acquired the necessary skills, and has taken the initiative to present social media tools to them.

We barely touched the surface on social media platforms, such as Blogging, Micro-Blogging, Facebook and Video Photo Sharing sites. The students has never used Social Media tools via Pc’s . This will make them a perfect candidate for Social Media Experts, and can facilitate the next batch of students. The focus is “Social Media for Social Change”