As the morning progressed it was wonderful to see families gathering, young people and women signing up for the wide range of courses on offer. There was certainly a buzz in the air as waves of people gathered to register for the variety of RLabs course offering. Due to the influx the courses were fully booked in a matter of minutes and the RLabs champions had to start registration and the waiting list for the second semester.

All the groups were welcomed and received an overview of the heart of RLabs and what we are about. The amazing feeling of having hundreds of people gathering to be empowered and equipped is something that will remain printed on my mind. It was people from all walks of life, different communities finding one purpose in having a passion for learning.

To all the new members of the Academy and RLabs family may 2012 be the year of fulfillment and may your appetite for learning increase as we journey together in Reconstructing our Communities.

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As we arrived we were directed to a school (read TANZICT post about the experience)where more than 150 learners were waiting for us to discussion social innovation and entrepreneurship. Spending time with this amazing group of young people who are passionate about their communities and social change taught me THREE valuable Social Entrepreneurship lessons:

1) Adversity is the catalysts for innovation. In a community where the learners indicated that the main problems are water, electricity, infrastructure and connectivity were the key drivers for social innovation in the community.

2) Community-driven innovation initiatives are great opportunities to grow into social enterprises. Some of the learners saw an opportunity to start a gardening project where they can grow produce that can possibly be sold to members of the local community.

3) Tension in communities do bring together a wide range of people who as a collective can address the problems in a sustainable way. Through the GSE program it is amazing to see how a number of different stakeholders in Morogoro along with the learners and schools are coming together to make a difference in their communities.

The experience with the learners was nothing short of being special and their passion to learn about entrepreneurship with a social impact tells me that Morogoro, Tanzania has a bright future ahead with world-class leaders.

Source: http://marlonparker.co.za

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Arriving in Dar es Salaam a few days ago brought an air of excitement in that it is a city with so much potential and a growing interest in technology. The RLabs visit was in partnership with TANZICT that stands for The Information Society and ICT Sector Development Project. It’s bilateral collaboration project between the Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology of Tanzania (MCST) and Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

The project’s overall objective is a strengthened Tanzanian information society with enhanced capacities to contribute to the achievement of the Government’s socio-economic development goals.

The project is organized in three components:

1) Support the revision of the national ICT policy and start of the implementation.
2) Strengthen the Institutional capacity of MCST.
3) Create Tanzanian Innovation Program.

Social Entrepreneurship and its role in leaving a social impact:

The first session we had at the TANZICT Innovation Hub was to share the story of RLabs and to see the process of using Social Entrepreneurship in making a difference in the community. The presentation (see above) was followed by a discussion with some young entrepreneurs about how they can use Social problems in the community to make a difference. Through some exercises the entrepreneurs grew ideas into addressing local problems their communities are facing in Dar es Salaam. The day ended with some fascinating pitches by mobile entrepreneurs and it showed the potential for having Dar es Salaam as a technology hub for East Africa. The day really highlighted the need for fresh thinking to solve real problems on the African continent and proved that Social Innovation will be at the forefront of bringing the change needed in Tanzania driven by young tech social entrepreneurs.

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This is testament to the power of mobile phones and the benefit of using a variety of digital platforms. Over the last few years we’ve ensured that mobile become a key component to our strategy for social change. Realising that it is the one technology that most of the world has access to and by leveraging it will assist us in reaching our goal of reaching the world through a Social Revolution.

We will share a more detailed report soon on how we’ve reached the milestone but some of the core technologies used are:

1) MXit Information Portals
2) JamiiX and multiple Mobile Chat services
3) Mobi web portals
4) Mobile Applications
5) Mobile Social networks

At RLabs we will continue pursuing possibilities of maximizing the use of mobile phones to make a difference and to spread the movement of Hope. Thank you to everyone who has contributed towards this journey and we hope together that we can now look forward to the next Million.

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Over the past few years increasingly practitioners, researchers, social entrepreneurs, technologists and others have been buzzing with the concept of ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development). Although many initiatives, projects and programmes have claimed to be ICT4D/M4D/SM4D etc. the true impact of these technologies on development of people are yet to be seen. A number of projects such as InfoDev managed by the World Bank and other developing agencies have published lessons they’ve learn through the analysis of some of their programmes. These lessons include:

- Lesson 1: Involve target groups in project design and monitoring.
- Lesson 2: When choosing the technology for a poverty intervention project, pay particular attention to infrastructure requirements, local availability, training requirements, and technical challenges. Simpler technology often produces better results.
- Lesson 3: Make use of appropriate technologies (mobile phones etc.).
- Lesson 4: ICT projects that reach out to rural areas might contribute more to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) than projects based in urban areas.
- Lesson 5: Sustainable models for ICT4D programmes are lacking.
-Lesson 6: Projects that focus on ICT training should include a job placement component.

Although the above are valuable lessons what remains to be seen is how many of such development initiatives actually are sustained and fulfilling the MDGs in the long-term. We are also seeing more Innovations emerging in collaboration with developing markets where many of the target audiences are become co-creators and co-designers instead of just being the target for delivery of the solutions. However, the question that remains to be asked is “how many of these target audiences have ownership or stewardship of their shared innovations?” It is clear that the future of ICT4D should perhaps be turned on its head and that we should instead of just seeing applications of ICTs in the developing world, actually begin to see more of the Developing World innovating in ICT (D4ICT or ICT4D 3.0) to meet their local needs that can be replicated in other emerging economies or even developed economies.

We do find that our “developing economies” have many characteristics that makes it ideal spaces for ICT4D Innovation Hubs. Some of these could be:
- People know how to survive. Many have endured extreme social issues and have the ability to make things happen in the midst of not having much.
- Who best knows the problem than the people in that developing situation. Being able to define their problems based on their collective experiences are useful.
- Most developing communities have their local champions who could drive and manage the innovation process.
- They know how to take such solutions to their target market because they know their communities.

As practitioners working in the field of ICT4D, M4D, SM4D etc. we still have a long way to go before we truly see the bigger impact on the ground where our target groups can become self-sustainable with technology and innovation just being the enabler.

Source: http://marlonparker.co.za

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The next few weeks the teams in South Africa, Nigeria and United States will be working towards its launch date with a training bootcamp for young people aged 16 – 25. Not only will they be able to benefit from digital training but they will also become part of the larger RLabs Global Movement where we hope to leverage the expertise of our network.

The technology training with the young people will include the following components:

1) Social Media for Social Change
2) Digital Change Agents
3) JamiiX Mobile Counselling
4) Digital Storytelling

The planned launch is for January 2012 and with only a few weeks to prepare our team is excited to see RLabs Nigeria making an impact in the communities growing the Social Revolution.

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Today was another exciting day for us as we announced a partnership between ExtendedBITS and RLabs to start the first ICT Innovation Incubator in Somaliland. This will provide young people from Somaliland the opportunity to not just gain valuable ICT and Entrepreneurship experience but also provide an opportunity to grow a new breed of African Technology Entrepreneurs in Somaliland.

This collaboration has been made possible through the ExtendedBITS partnership with VC4Africa and RLabs partnership with One Percent Club. Over the next few months we will be working towards setting up infrastructure in Somaliland and start this new journey of driving Innovation and the Social Revolution at the Horn of Africa.

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A shift of focus is required from the Design World to the Design for the World which will lead to even more exciting innovations that can have a major social impact. The design approach should be one of people-based and not just having people as the end-user. This is part of Design Thinking as an approach to find innovative solutions where the aim is using your community as a way of finding more creative and disruptive ways of solving problems.

“If designers are going to realise the full potential of design thought, then they should also learn to anlayse how the situations that frame design practice are
themselves constructed” Margolin