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

Something new and fresh has aroused for me this week. I had the opportunity to play a directors role for a movie shoot at Impact Direct / Rlabs. Nathan Thys who is a filmmaker and working in the British film industry for a few years, who did a workshop with us on movie making. We started 8am and ended 9pm, during this time, we did the introduction to movie making, movie shoot and editing.
Each of us had to come up with a movie idea (story) which we pitched to the team, and who voted for two best movie ideas, that we had to shoot at the end of the day. The first vote went to Clinton Liederman a comedy of a man who was locked out of his house half naked and had to jump the walls of the neighbour to get into the house. The other vote went to Terence Hendricks, a thriller story of a girl that was sold to gangsters.
One of the projects in the Rlabs space is the Social Media Events where we will do the live blogging, twitter, flickr, zoopy, youtube etc. and give our client a copy of a edited cut dvd video of the event we have taken on that day and this is where the movie making workshop will come into play. The team got enough skill to do a great film shoot.