CollaboMe

CollaboMe is an online platform for African creatives to collaborate on Projects.

Creatives do not have a tailormade online work environment. Unlike what Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other collaboration software did for other formal jobs, nothing was really made for Creatives. Creatives demand a tailormade online work environment hence throughout Covid 19, creatives struggled to collaboratively and remotely work on projects together.

Low Revenue for youths in the Creative Economy. (Average income of a creative in Zimbabwe and Africa)

It’s very difficult to individually work on creative projects. If you think of any creative project you know. If it’s a movie, song, architectural design, in all cases no single creative worked on that project. Hence the production would have been done collaboratively by a team.

Disconnect between young creatives and formal opportunities. Because much of the young people working in the creative space did not receive formal education and are freelancers, the is a great disconnect between creatives and formal opportunities. Formal opportunities include working with private sector companies, Non-Profits, Governments or other formal institutions.  

Our solution is called CollaboMe, it is Web System that allows creatives to collaboratively work on projects online. On CollaboMe creatives work on projects including Graphic designing, Videography, architectural design, engineering design, filming, music and animation. Essentially what happens is when a project is started, resources are uploaded for contributing creatives to access. After contributing artists send in their contributions. The project administrator then aggregates all contributions into one final production. All artists whose work was actually used in the final production will be recognized and fairly paid if the project was funded.

Creatives are able to digitally collaborate on projects remotely with other creatives located miles away. Not only do they work with peers, you can discover other creatives and network with established artists. Through the platform young creatives can generate revenue from collaborating on funded projects. CollaboMe seeks to partner with different organizations from the civic society, private sector, Governments offering digital connectivity between young African creatives and formal opportunities. The platform offers a community of a diverse group of creatives including writers, graphic designers, videographers and more.

The platform was developed using various technologies. The design was done by Figma, the front end was done with React JS, HTML, CSS. We used a content Management Software called SilverStripe and PHP for the Backend. 

Our solution creates a tailormade software for creative collaboration between creatives. Young creatives can generate revenue from contributing to funded projects and getting paid. CollaboMe creates a network of young creatives including graphic designers, animators, video editors, videographers, architects and different creatives creating digital art.

The platform establishes digital connectivity between individual creatives and formal opportunities such as working with private sector, public sector and Government institutions.

The solution will economically uplift the lives of young African creatives who are failing to generate revenue through their creative work. It will allow underground artists to get the opportunity to collaborate with established artists. A large number of young African creatives can use CollaboMe as a stepping stone into their professional career. Underground artists are able to work on a single project with established artists. Individual creatives are able to work on complex projects like videos and animations which would ordinarily need a diverse group of creatives. Nonprofits are able to get input from persons living in different places, victims can tell their story according to how it specifically affects them in their location. Essentially CollaboMe can be used as civic tool for non-profits to create digital content that addresses different problems being faced in any community. Hence, since collaboration is a major catalyst that ensures the best content is created CollaboMe offers its platform as a facilitator

According to a study by UNESCO it is estimated that 2.4 million people are currently employed in the creative industries in Africa. The industry is however not producing enough revenue that distributes funds fairly to individual creatives involved. The creative industry is dominated by young people and Africa is largely considered a young continent with 60% of the entire continent aged below 25. Africa is home to 19 per cent of the global youth population, which by 2030 will have increased by 42 per cent according to the United Nations projections say creative industries therefore could be an important sector providing decent jobs for young people in Africa, which, according to ILO, had a youth unemployment rate of 11.6 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2014. According to a study by Margaret Sylvia Barrett Professor of Music and Performance, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, collaboration is the catalyst for great creative project. The social issue we are solving is the difficulties young African creatives face to generate revenue from their creative art. Creatives include poets, graphic designers, video editors, illustrators, architects and any entity who creates digital creative art. They are also struggling to find other creatives to work with and to also monetize their creative work. Civic society organizations and different organizations want digital creative content created for them and often times they want the creatives to collaborate on content, however creatives fail to find a platform to co-create. Different nonprofits usually need victims from different specific locations to tell their own narratives and sometimes fail to do that because they have to physically travel to such places. This was enhanced by the coming of Covid 19 and creatives could not work remotely. Collaboration platforms such as Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams came in for the regular office work professionals such as lawyers and accountants but not for a creative.

Tanatswa Mukwacha (Creative Director)

Founder of CollaboMe. Background in management Information systems and creative industries. Worked as a freelance content creator in video and written articles for over 4 years. He has written articles for different news and media agencies in around Africa. A social innovator who has managed to work with a number of Civil Society Organizations in Zimbabwe in developing solutions for social problems in Zimbabwe. Tanatswa Mukwacha is a freelance creative and literally understands the challenges of generating revenue as a creative in Zimbabwe and Africa.

Itayi Patrick Chitovoro (Chief Technology Officer)

Founder of Chito Systems (Pvt) Ltd. Throughout his 10 years of experience in enterprise cloud software development, Itayi has worked in various software development and cloud computing roles at several international internet startups, and he brings a strong focus on web systems backend development. Prior to working full time for CollaboMe, Itayi built cloud data systems for Insite Solutions (SA) as a Senior Software Developer, his responsibilities included building the team and infrastructure that served more than 500 locals and international clients. Itayi understands the use technology in creating solutions to different societal challenges being faced by people in a community.

Tafadzwa Chaipa (Senior Developer)

BSc Honours in Information Systems. Mobile & Web App Developer. Full Stack Software Developer. Experienced in Silverstripe and Java. General Manager for Chito Systems software development company. Tafadzwa Chaipa understands product design and creating human centered software that solves the intended problem for the specific target market.

Denzel Sambo (Digital Brand Strategist)

Freelance Content Creator. Experienced Digital Marketer, Graphic Designer, Branding Strategist & Digital Media Expert. Has worked with companies in both the private and public sector. Award winning arts blogger and Journalist. Through interaction with artists and different arts practitioners Denzel Sambo has got a lot of information on how many artists are failing to monetize their work and earn a steady living through their art.

We conducted a Co-Creation session, where we had creatives from different industries including animators, graphic designer, video editors, writers and different digital art fields. Through the co-creation session we managed to get insights and contributions from the creatives on the kinds of features we should incorporate on the platform. After taking that into account and developing the platform we launched a Beta test. Through the beta test we corrected errors and bugs within the system and taking into account feedback from the creatives in the Beta Test. As the CollaboMe team we did a lot of research around the creative economy in Africa. We have worked in different research projects about the state of the creative industries in Africa. More so as individual creatives ourselves we more less understood the challenges that creatives in Zimbabwe are facing.