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FREE Mobile Counselling Portals to Non-profits

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:07:07 +0000

RLabs in partnership with Vodacom Foundation and JamiiX are offering 100 NGOs, non-profits, educational organizations, schools, community organisations and social groups the opportunity to leverage the power of mobile phone technology.

This as an initial roll out will give organisations access to the JamiiX Education and Health portals providing an opportunity to communicate and engage with their userbase via mobile chat platforms and instant messengers (e.g. Mxit). “With more than 30 million South Africans using mobile chat, social networks and instant messengers its provides a unique opportunity for organisations to leverage these new platforms of communication amongst youth” according to RLabs Founder, Marlon Parker.

This opportunity is currently only open to organisations operating in the Western Cape and RLabs will also provide workshops at NO COST on the platform and the concepts of mobile counselling and support. We hope that through these partnerships and offering that many more communities can be reached through the use of mobile technologies and the organisations being empowered will be able to increase their channels of support to serving the people in need.

If your organisation is interested in being able to provide value added services via Mxit and other mobile platforms, please contact us for more information. Please note that there will be an expansion to other provinces with this offer later this year and we will keep you updated on its progress.

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RLabs Membership Programme

admin — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:35:08 +0000

As part of the RLabs mandate to equip and empower communities, a new initiative is being launched by our team in 2012:

RLabs Membership Programme

The aim of this program is to encourage collaboration, co-creation, learning, innovation and provide our members from the community, students, entrepreneurs and those in need an inspiration space. The program will offer a variety of membership packages based on the needs of the members.

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Silver Membership (FREE)

Members will have access to a maximum of 5 sessions a month to a “hot desk” with internet (30min each) *

You will have first preference on ALL courses being offered at RLabs.

Receives a 10% discount on ALL professional workshops and events hosted by RLabs.

48 hour advanced booking required

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Gold Membership ($20 per month)

Members will have access to a maximum of 5 sessions a month to a “hot desk” with internet (60min each) *

You will have first preference on ALL courses being offered at the RLabs Academy.

Receives a 20% discount on ALL professional workshops and events hosted by RLabs.

24 hour advanced booking required for hotdesk

FREE coffee

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Platinum Membership ($40 per month)

Members will have access to maximum of 10 sessions a month to a “hot desk” with internet (60min each) *

You will have first preference on ALL courses being offered at the RLabs Academy.

Receives a 30% discount on ALL professional workshops and events hosted by RLabs.

24 hour advanced booking required for hot desk

Joint membership (allow one other person to use your membership benefits)

1 hour access to board room and audio/visual facilities every quarter

Tech. support while at RLabs

Printing facilities (limited to 100 pages)

FREE coffee

Seats are limited and if you are interested in registration for the RLabs membership programme please contact us and we will get back to you about your application. Please note that the membership is only valid with the local RLabs where you registered and plans to allow global access will be announced soon. Special arrangements can be made if you are traveling and the local RLabs have space available for you to access.

* While seats are available. Gold and Platinum members get first preference on available seats.

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Digital and Social Media training with Blikkies Dorp

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:24:06 +0000

It was an early start to the day as our team made their way to “Blikkies Dorp” (Tin Town in English ), a Temporary Relocation Area in Delft, 30km from Cape Town. It is called Blikkies Dorp due to the entire area consisting of corrugated iron shacks lined up in multiple rows.

The day itself was one filled with excitement as the RLabs team will have the opportunity to meet some of the amazing leaders and residents of Blikkies Dorp equipping them with Digital and Social Media skills. The group who arrived at the RLabs Creative space in Cape Town was part of the Blikkies 4 Hope project and the training was part of their plan to equip themselves with skills to share their community stories with the rest of the world.

The sessions started with each one of the team and group introducing themselves sharing their expectations for the day. It did not take long before everyone got going covering various tools such as blogging, facebook, twitter and youtube, to name but a few. As the day progressed the atmosphere in the room became evident that the hunger and thirst to learn as well as sharing of stories become the order of the day.

The entire experience have taught us some valuable lessons:

1) Hope is like a flame we always need one another to fan the flame in order to it keep burning.

2) Our circumstances should never be an excuse for a lack of passion. The passion and drive by the Blikkies4Hope team was incredible and contagious.

3) An appetite for learning should always be served with a mixture of endless possibilities and HOPE.

RLabs will continue working with the people and organisations in Blikkies Dorp to make the difference and see a community empowered. To support the Blikkies4Hope project visit their website and for a detailed look into this community view the video by Barefoot Workshops about the people of “Blikkies Dorp”

Tin Town – Original from Barefoot Workshops on Vimeo.

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Social Media Factory: Industrialising Social Media

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:30:52 +0000

As part of our Innovation Incubation and Acceleration (InnovIA) profile series, we highlighting another exciting social enterprise start-up, Social Media Factory, which was founded by Craig Ross to maximize the use of Social Media to create employment and provide quality services to organisations, businesses and corporate companies.

The idea was birthed after realising the high unemployment rates in his community and the opportunity to develop digital artisans in working as remote agents/workers for companies in need of digital work. The Social Media Factory team develop the campaigns and strategies for companies and compile manageable pieces of work for its extended community to execute. This is further managed and moderated by the Social Media Factory manager to ensure quality of the work being executed in the factory.

Through this service more than 50 part-time workers has been employed through the Social Media Factory and being part of the RLabs InnovIA the goal is to grow the platform beyond South Africa.

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RLabs Atlantis: A Revolution of Hope and Innovation

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:33:46 +0000

This past weekend the RLabs crew found themselves 40km outside of Cape Town, South Africa in a town called Atlantis. It has approximately 210,000 residents and suffers under high levels of poverty, substance abuse and unemployment. Atlantis has always been best known as the town that apartheid built. Above all it is a community in tension where people are seeking hope and an opportunity for reconstruction.

It is with this purpose that RLabs partnered with a local non-profit, under the supervision of Chief Community Advisor Dr. Mike Adams, to give birth to RLabs Atlantis. The setup of the new Living Lab is to address the social problems being faced by many of the members in this community but also to provide hope through innovative programmes such as:

1) FREE RLabs Academy – This will be launched in March and the courses already confirmed is Digital Media, Entrepreneurship and Art & Design.

2) The Restoration Project – This community outreach project is geared towards young people in the Atlantis area who are at risk, unemployed, vulnerable and in need of a new beginning. The programme will be a mix of mentorship, mobile counselling services, skills development (through the Academy), social entrepreneurship and well-being programmes.

3) Innovation Incubator and Accelerator – The incubation of ideas and turning it into sustainable social enterprises is another aspect that will be explored in Atlantis by the local RLabs Champions.

4) Business Development – Developing business opportunities and creating social capital would also be high on the agenda for RLabs Atlantis ensuring that it becomes a town known for innovation and hope.

Atlantis is the gateway to the West Coast along South Africa and RLabs is excited to see the Social Revolution flooding Atlantis with renewed hope and innovation to bring about the Reconstruction of the Communities in Tension.

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Uusi: Breaking 1 Million Job Searches and 10,000 Mobile CVs

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:54:00 +0000

The RLabs Innovation Incubator and Accelerator (InnovIA) for 2012 have an exciting line-up of Social Enterprise start-ups and one of our enterprises just released the following exciting announcement:

It has been just over 7 weeks since Uusi had its soft launch (BETA) via Mxit and this decision of launching via Africa’s most popular Social Network has been validated in the current activity and results. We excited to announce that Uusi have passed the 10,000 Mobile CVs uploaded milestone today.

To add to the excitement we’ve also passed more than 1 Million job searches during this time and expect further growth as we continue to grow the value offering of Uusi to our users. As part of our celebration of reaching these milestones and appreciation to our users, Uusi will make available the new features (currently to limited users only) to our entire community this week.

Thank you everyone for the continuous support and we will continue create value to those looking for a New Beginning.

Source: Uusi.me

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RLabs Namibia Social Media Workshop

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:35:05 +0000

RLabs in partnership with the Namibia Business Innovation Centre (NBIC) will be offering a 3 x 2 week workshop for unemployed young people who would like to enter the Digital Industry.

The workshops are designed for young people with a secondary or tertiary degree. Initially they should come from Windhoek to make participation and later involvement easier and as NBIC is not able to provide travel expenses and lodging. The courses are all FREE but in return for receiving free training you have to commit to volunteer at NBIC e.g. to help with events, help training the next round of participants, help other NGOs or companies improve their social network representation.

If you are interested in being part of this Social Media programme this year then submit to NBIC via email (Limene@polytechnic.edu.na) the following documents:
1. A motivational letter stating why you want to participate, what you are currently doing, how you will make the time available for the trainings
2. A curriculum vitae or resume stating the highest grade/degree you obtained so far

As space is limited, NBIC might invite you for a brief interview to select the best candidates for the training.

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RLabs Jozi: A true Champion Experience

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:24:51 +0000

Special thanks to RLabs Jozi champion Valencia Jacobs for sharing her personal account doing her first Social Media session with a group of young people in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“Well what can I say, it was overwhelming! When registration started I was nervous yet excited that finally something started happening at RLabs Jozi, there was a visible sign that we were going to begin doing what we have been planning for months. I saw the response and I was overwhelmed.

The 1st day was as all 1st day’s are, a mixture of what their reaction would be, how would I be and how would I be inspired to share the message of hope across that we were declaring as our mission. Sometimes one feels that this is what I was born to do, but that day I had lots of questions wanting to know what I was destined to do. So we started in true RLabs tradition with a check in, and most of the class of 20 students checked in tired and not sure what the day had in store for them. We then took a tour of the premises I started feeling more confident when the students saw what we were about. When they left that day, I prayed “Please let them come back” lol because nothing was done except a whole lot of talking from my side.

Well needless to say the 2nd, 3rd and the remainder of the course they were here, back and full of life, our check in’s became more enthusiastic except of course for the latest “Kaizer Chief” scores that were always related by some or other student not doing so well because Chiefs lost.

True joy came when we created “gmail” accounts, it was like they entered a whole new world, like one of the students so nicely put it “the light at the end of the tunnel” I asked the class to send RLabs Jozi an email stating what the course has done for them so far. Now by this time I realised that training 20 students on your own that have never touched a computer let alone been on the internet might have been a bit might much initially so I was not only physically tired from running up and down but mentally tired as you have different levels within the class itself. However somewhere and definitely through the emails received from our students I regained strength and I was energised to carry on and complete the full three week training programme prepared.

At the end training was successful, the programme was carried out and “mission completed” was the end result, they all had email accounts, facebook accounts and started their own blogs. I had the students check in on the last day, and to my surprise their check in was a vote of thanks to RLabs for opening up a whole new world to them, I was overwhelmed, emotional and an inner strength was given to me.

Lessons learnt from this was that we do this not for self benefit nor for self gratification like I initially thought, we do this because as we have been blessed with the ability to bring these forms of media to our youth. 2012 looks promising we have new champions dedicated to making RLabs a success! We have community issues we would like to address as a group and we know as RLabs Jozi we will fulfil these and be successful. This is RLabs Jozi checking out at a 200 because not only do we know we can, but we’ve experienced this Hope that showed us what is possible!”

Source: Valencia Jacobs (RLabs Jozi Champion)

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RLabs Portugal: Web-based SMS Counselling Application

admin — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:20:14 +0000

The RLabs team in Portugal have been working the last few months on a Web-based SMS Counselling Application that allows users to chat, send messages and manage their profile. The system currently known as “RLabs” has been developed as part of a partnership with the Mobile Computing group at the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (University of Porto Engineering Faculty).

The project is still in development and hope to go live first half of 2012. Below you can see some screenshots of the “RLabs” application:

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RLabs Academy Courses for 2012 announced

admin — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:54:19 +0000

After an eventful 2011 with more than 250 graduates, the RLabs Academy in Cape Town is launching exciting new courses with an offering of 16 courses for 2012. The courses include Social Media, Web and Multimedia, Entrepreneurship as well as Leadership courses. Registration will take place during January 2012 and all courses offered are FREE on a first come basis.

You can view the full list of courses offered here.