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

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”

This week’s session was about “What is an E-mail” and doing the practical where the moms created their gmail accounts. This is going to be a great experience for me to see how these ladies is going to grow in their typing and computer skills. At the moment majority of them cannot type and are not comfortable using the mouse. Well done ladies you did very well today.

Don’t wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater.
– Mary Manin Morrissey

After two consecutive years of social media for social change training under the umbrella of Rlabs, this past weekend they launched the 2010 social media for social change sessions. This is the 3rd year of training happening together withImpact Direct and CPUT. For 2008 -2009 Rlabs trained more than 70 men, women and teens on the platform of social media. The launch for 2010 social media for social change sessions 17 people signed up to join the mom3.0 and the reconstructed sessions this year.

2008:

This was the first year when Marlon Parker took a gamble to take ex-drug addicts and ex-gangsters into the Lab at CPUT to teach them computer skills in a undisciplined way which was social media. Something that I have to highlight we knew nothing about computers besides knowing how to steal them. Later in the year Rlabs launched the mom2.0 this was house wives of the community which did the same training (social media for social change).

2009:

The intake of 2009 mom2.0 and the reconstructed sessions was facilitated by a team of the 2008 graduates remember they knew nothing about computers and social media but they managed to take them through to graduating the end of December 2009.

2010:

A very interesting year again a team of 2009 graduates will manage the sessions. This year’s sessions will be more spiced up the training will not only be manage in the Rlabs it will be more practical where the students will go into the community, malls, mountain and  beaches to take video clips and pics and do their stories around that.

As a graduate of 2008 I’m a witness how champions are being developed through this Rlabs project. A message to these years’ students if you know nothing about computers and social media you are a perfect candidate of becoming a great champion for the community

This gave birth to the world’s FIRST Social Media Factory, where trained community members who are unemployed are given opportunities to create extra income through being part of a team managing social media strategies for businesses, organisations, schools and public figures. This means that those who are in need of having their Social Media Strategy being managed or outsourced not only get access to these services at very good prices but also the teams implementing these strategies will consist of a mix of experts and community members. Exciting when a housewife who have no other form of income can use her Twitter skills and manage the Twitter stream for an organisation via her mobile phone. She would then be rewarded for each tweet thus being able to make a basic living via the Social Media Factory system.

The launch of Social Media Factory will be February 2010 and we hoping to see a global use of the Social Media Factory. We are excited to see how using Social Media, community members can be empowered and unemployment addressed to ensure our communities are reconstructed. Any organisations or businesses who would like to register for services with the Social Media Factory can contact us and we will send more details closer to the launch.

Today was no ordinary day for the RLabs team as they launched the first African Social Media Surgery. The idea was to take Social and New Media to the public in an open space providing them with basic skills on getting started on this exciting journey. The launch was hosted by Vangate Mall in Bridgetown (Setting up of equipment above), Cape Town and 47 people actively participated by spending at least 15 minutes each with our Social Media Surgeons. These included people signing up for email accounts (gmail), Facebook as well as Twitter accounts. There were people also interested in sharing sites such as Flickr and Youtube with also the occasional person asking about blogging. Below we see Clive, one of our Social Media Surgeons, helping a couple with an email account that could be used for their small business.

Judging from the online buzz and excitement in the mall itself it cam as no surprise that we had people waiting in queues to see our surgeons. Fortunately while the public was waiting to see the surgeons we had part of the team giving basic Social Media 101 talks with the crowds and also distributing Surgery help cards to the public.

The major tools that the public wanted to know was how to setup Facebook and email accounts. What the surgeons also did was to show the public how they could access the same service they just signed up for via the Social Media Surgery on their mobile phones. The key element is for the community to be able to engage using Social Media without being affected by the barrier of connectivity or accessibility. Well done to the RLabs superstars for this great initiative and lets see more people engaging with Social Media to make a difference and to change lives in our communities.

Source: Technology for Community Empowerment

The RLabs Business Incubator (BI) is another exciting initiative that will be the host for local ICT and Web startups providing various BI services from facilities, training and resources. With the launch of the BI only due March 2010 it has already attracted attention from a number of local startups in the Cape Town area.

For more information about the above initiatives and others contact us.