Thribe

We are committed to train and facilitate access to the growing untapped youth in developing countries to access high-value jobs that will continue to arise in the fourth industrial revolution. 

We propose a learn by doing platform, in which students get actionable courses and work posted by companies to build their portfolio and train relevant skills. They will train and work from their own place of living without the need for access to the internet and grow until they are fully remote contractors working for impactful corporations. 

The fourth industrial revolution has the potential to increase income inequality and the standard of living for unskilled people. The need for upskilling and advanced digital skills is relevant for everyone participating in the digital economy. This tool will give untapped talent on a global scale the ability to master digital skills through hands-on experience enabling them to broaden their professional possibilities.

Africa accounts for 12% of the world’s population but generates only 1% of global GDP. The economy was predicted to quadruple in size by 2050, if challenges such as literacy levels and upskilling labour force are addressed. 

Africa was found to have the world’s highest educational exclusion levels. The inaccessibility of higher education in combination with the high cost to find work largely explain high unemployment rates (around 30% in South Africa). This forces youth to leave the continent for greater opportunities, a phenomenon called brain drain. Those who remain are often subject to punishment if they want to develop and break away from the community.

As of 2019, only 10.7% of households in Africa owned a computer and the amount of SIM connections in sub-Saharan Africa represented 75% of the population. For those who do have access to electronics, often the cost of wifi and data is so high in addition to a poor infrastructure, use is further inhibited. 

We are attempting to provide opportunities to underprivileged talent in Africa and reduce chronic unemployment.

We are a learn-by-doing education platform. Youth can accept micro challenges which upon completion, earn credits towards tools for their professional future and thereafter money. Committed users will gain access to most current educational content.

The Challenges and the upskilling content is co-created with local corporates to take advantage of the skill development tax reduction in South Africa. Challenges and lessons are cut into small chunks and gamified to create small constant achievements and improvement. Data is collected on student behaviour and nudges are used to increase completion of the program. 

Through the use of IoT devices, routers and existing network infrastructure (cables or wireless routers), we effectively create a small local "internet" in each community. Each end-user does not need to pay for any bandwidth or internet usage for being on this local "internet" or WAN. Each local "internet" will have a centralized server that will sync up and down curated content and application data with the cloud to enable and empower the gamified education platform. Once each community "internet" or WAN has the curated data, the end-users can make use of the local "internet" free of charge, and participate in the gamified education platform with very little limitation.

We are targeting the underemployed and chronically unemployed youth in South Africa. Our target market has completed a basic level of education, coming from a tightly knit marginalized community without access to the internet and laptops. Their community punishes social deviation (even if this includes economic or educational upliftment) and the expense to apply for a job is too high than to remain jobless.

We have conducted extensive research into the social, economic and political environment in South Africa and are working with local sociologists and teachers to understand the realities of our target population. Further qualitative research is planned

Thribe removes barriers to upskilling. Students can work from their community with their current tools and infrastructure. They have a clear path to follow to achieve financial independence and skill mastery. The tool is designed to break down big challenges into small achievable steps and to collect data of user behaviour. Continuous achievement  and small goals builds users motivation and self confidence while individual data allows us to create personalized nudges and relevant training paths to ensure students success. 

Thribe injects money to the marginalized micro-economy. Users spending power increases which results in the ability to support local businesses.

Our solution aligns with the “Good Jobs: inclusive entrepreneurship challenge” and the dimension “Equip workers with technological and digital literacy as well as the durable skills needed to stay apace with the changing job market and economic downturns”

Our offline, digital solution provides opportunity and reaches underutilized talent, particularly in marginalized populations. Through this solution, talent will be able to develop themselves, build relevant digital skills needed in the market, earn digital equipment and money and access sustainable jobs / continuous freelance projects. 

Other organizations do offer alternatives to higher education and development to provide professional opportunities with partner companies. Umzi in particular offers a 12-month, paid training programme which is demand-driven, project-based, Agile, and human-centred. They offer development in careers such as Data Science & Data Engineering, Web Development, UX Strategy, UI Design and Copywriting and Multimedia. Applicants must pass basic education standards and the group admitted into the program is exclusive. Those who are accepted attend classes in person. At the end, talent is showcased at https://www.umuzi.org/hire-tal... with their pictures to humanize the hiring of underprivileged people trying to turn their lives around.

Our solution is unique in that it is available for those who do not have access to the internet, addresses the societal issue of rejection when leaving the community to develop oneselves as users do not need to leave their own home to gain access to content and provides hands on experience that is directly relevant to organizations. We not only develop talent but provide directly relevant skills and solutions for our partners.

The internet of Things, is a way to extend the power of the internet beyond computers and smartphones to a whole range of other things, processes, and environments. Those “connected” devices are then able to be used to gather information, send information back, or both.

This makes file sharing without connection to the internet possible through a wireless network. Wireless Local Area Networks require the installation of a wireless router which is connected to a modem with an ethernet cable. The next step is to configure the router and install router software. In this step, a name for the wireless network will be designated and the type of security. Once these steps are completed, we will then be able to enter our Internet connection information, such as the IP address and DNS information from our internet service provider and enable wireless access. In order to get the best signal, our routers will need to be placed in the most central area in relation to the majority of our users within the townships. 

Users simply need to connect their devices to our network with any wifi device and enter our password.

The WAN networking technology is widely used in every home with a router and internet connection. The gamified education software technology is widely used in various platforms across the internet, such as MindValley and DuoLingo. Online, remote working platforms, such as UpWork and Fivver are becoming more and more popular. By combining the two software platforms together and delivering the curated content, lessons and jobs via a software synchronized Wide Area Network technology, we can successfully deliver the data to underprivileged users without them needing to pay for it.

Our solution has the potential to make a significant impact as it reaches populations at the most risk of falling even further behind in the digital economy as they are oftentimes overlooked and excluded due to their lack of resources, education etc. 

The regular input of content will keep users motivated and the ability to build a foundation of mindset, knowledge and skills in the short term. This knowledge will be what users can draw from and build upon in their further development and later within the challenges. In the long term, new content will allow users to gain exposure to new skills to remain motivated to utilize our platform and ensure their relevance within the market. 

The increase of company partnerships will result in potentially higher users attracted to the platform, greater exposure to professional possibilities, again higher motivation to continue use of the course work and increased amount of practical and relevant business skills for users. For the long term, outcomes of increased partnerships will result in greater credibility of the organization, easier access to possibilities when scaling the concept and greater potential for success when initiating a subscription service within the platform. 

Short term outcomes of completion of course work and challenges are feelings of accomplishment, gratification and either a monetary reward or credit towards digital tools for users' professional futures. Our hope is they become hungry for further success as a result of these positive feelings of accomplishment. Long term outcomes of the completion of course work and challenges are users earning steadier income / other resources necessary for continued success and completed projects to add to their personal portfolio. Additional the long term outcomes are exposure to different types of work within real organizations and skills / solutions that can be applied to future problems, leading to more relevance in the job market as users seek full time employment.

Because our idea is only a concept, it is currently serving no one. 

However, the population in South Africa is roughly 59,308,690 people and as of 2019, roughly 3.4 million young people within the population (ages 15-24) were not employed or in an educational or training program. Our initial target market for the first year is this underprivileged youth within the population in South Africa. A 2016 study estimated the number of small businesses in South Africa to be around 2.2million. Of course it is not possible and our solution will not be applicable for all local businesses however there are immense opportunities for those looking for solutions to increase efficiency with digital tools or better market and scale their businesses. Other larger companies in South Africa include Anglo American, Standard Bank, Naspers, First Rand, Sasol and more that we can approach as they have more resources and capabilities to donate and contribute to a partnership. 

Once the platform is successful and sustainable in South Africa, the market potential is on a global scale and even easier in developed countries with access to the internet.

We want to eradicate unemployment in Africa and give people access to high quality work that they can do from their home. Within the first year we want to run a Thribe pilot in Cape Town in the four biggest townships. In the second year we want to expand to all major cities in South Africa and do a pilot in the rural areas of Eastern Cape. We want to use the first two years of the company to build, test and solidify our platform to make it easily scalable in both urban and rural areas. We also want to solidify our partnerships with companies and create a strong proof of concept to get more buy in as we further expand.

In five years we want our platform to be running in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana and Rwanda, which are the fastest growing countries in Africa. We want to create access to valuable work for 20 million youth across the continent.

We don't want to stop there, we want to be global and intercontinental. We want to be in all developing and developed countries, giving high value work to all the people who do not have  the relevant skills. We believe anyone at any age, from any background should be given the opportunity to learn and contribute to the rapidly growing digital economy.

Financial- We are a pro-profit social business. We need funding to expand rapidly across the african continent and around the world. Because we are targeting the BOP and doing an unproven business model, we may be perceived as high risk and not receive the necessary funding to take our concept global.

Technical - Most of our target customers do not have internet or computers.  While our platform is not dependent on internet access and is designed to work on mobile first, this can be a barrier to the quality of work produced by members. Corporates might not share high quality work and trust big project to Thribe when there is no two way communication and constant feedback. 

Cultural- Africa has many languages and different cultures. People are usually very socially engaged and community driven. If our platform is seen as something taboo or forbidden, communities as a whole may reject the solution before seeing the true value.

Corporates- In the past companies saw remote work as a high risk exercise and preferred collocated teams. With the current pandemic companies have had to adapt and have seen that this way of work can be effective. Microjobs are not yet common practice among corporate companies, we therefore may experience resistance by corporates to outsource relevant work through the platform.

Financial- We will enter hackathons and get donations from corporates who want to better their BEE status (corporate governance) to do a proof of concept. Once we have a proven business model, we will seek a high publicity strategy, to get more corporate partners to sign letters of intent and seek social VC funds.

Technical - Part of our business model is to equip members with the right tools. They earn a computer and a desk before they earn money. This enables members with the tools to get access to higher quality work. To move past a certain point or level in the platform, the member needs to be online. As a company we seek to create partnerships to make this more affordable and feasible for our top students.

Cultural- Because at the beginning we rely on WAN, we will put our servers next to community centres such as churches and schools. Thribe members need to physically be close to that area and therefore nudged to meet other members. As our members get wifi, we will forge an online community where people can collaborate and help each other with their challenges. 

Corporates- We will run a pilot working closely with a local company to do a business case from micro-jobs. In South Africa we will leverage the Skills Development (SD) and Socio-Economic Development (SED) components of BBBEE (corrective action to empower black workers) and YES (incentives to hire youth) to lower the tax companies pay by spending on our platform.

Allison Davis-  Cofounder 

Juliana von Ketelhodt- Cofounder 

Mikael von Ketelhodt- CTO

Fatima Royker- sociologist and teacher 

Anton Simanenko- Advisor

Fatima’s first career in South African sociology, politics and philosophy involved a deep understanding of nationals,  current regulations and society's drivers. Her knowledge and her approach will enable us to empathize with people and really understand their needs. She is currently specializing in education. This knowledge will help us when building the platform and breaking down tasks in microjobs.

Mikael is a full stack engineer who has developed high tech solutions in South Africa and the Netherlands for more than 6 years. His vast knowledge allows him to build the platform using best practices and incorporate leading edge technology into the solution. His industry knowledge  will also allow us to build relevant business cases for tech companies and help them break down tasks into relevant microjobs.

Allison has a background in data science and business analytics. Her expertise will help us design and implement the data collection strategy from the Thribe members side and also from the company jobs and content side. This is crucial for the monetization of the platform as well as the optimization of the teaching curriculum and microjobs. 

Juliana has a background in innovation, entrepreneurship and business. She has dealt with fast growing startups and scale ups. Her expertise will enable us to create and foster strategic partnership with corporates to create a steady stream of jobs and with existing NGO’s to get access to potential Thribe members.  Finally, she will focus on getting funding to expand rapidly and speedily across Africa.

Thribe is a learning by doing community platform for untapped talent to develop into specialized freelancers with applicable skills and problem solving capabilities to thrive in the job market. 

The key resources necessary for this venture include time, a disruptive marketing strategy, a series of wireless local area networks and initial investment from our partners. In the future, community working spaces. Costs include additional initial market research, testing, staff, time, investment and maintenance of WLAN.

Our key partners are local and corporate businesses looking for BEE benefits to develop underprivileged talent. Additionally other alternative educational platforms and companies looking to advertise relevant products and services on our platform. 

Key activities include screening applicants, data collection and analysis, research, management of content, networking / partnering with businesses and organizations, management of transactions, equipment upkeep and development of the platform. In the future, development and management of a job board.

Our segments include underutilized and underprivileged young talent within townships of South Africa who are hungry to develop and work. Additionally, organizations with best practices to share and workload they are willing to outsource to develop talent in exchange for governmental subsidies. 

Our impact measures include number of users and partner organizations, course and project completion, revenue from kickbacks and in the future number of users placed in long term positions. Additionally our revenue will come from the sale of data, marketing within the platform, kickbacks from project completion and in the future job posting subscriptions.

Thribe will apply for initial funding through hackathons and other governmental programs in order to generate enough startup costs. 

Once the platform is developed, infrastructure set in place and initial tests are completed, potential partner organizations will be approached regarding their participation and additionally asked for donations or materials.

After enough users are registered and active in the platform, demographic / socio-economic data will be analyzed and sold to interested organizations and businesses in addition to research regarding the target segment. User activity can also be tracked and monetized to organizations seeking long term top talent. Marketing within the platform will also be a revenue stream as we can update commercials between courses or display relevant product advertisements. 

Once users begin to complete company challenges within the platform, Thribe will maintain a more steady income receiving a percentage of the amount paid for the work that has been completed. 

In the future the platform can offer a subscription service for jobseekers and employers seeking remote employees, generating revenue from participation in the additional service.