Digital Skills Development Project in Townships and Rurals.

In South Africa, 41% of the public schools, have no computer labs. In fact in our province, The Eastern Cape, only 11% of schools have computer labs and this is the province with the highest unemployment rate (37.4%) according to (SAIRR) and Stats SA.

To solve this , we bring fresh hope by providing affordable internationally recognized digital programs in township and rural areas. And hence Fresh Hope a centre for change, we give Hope that is Fresh to the communities we serve. 

When scaled our solutions can improve the global economy because digital participation is important for the advancement of any country's economic growth. Since South Africa has their highest digital literacy rate in the African - our solution is essential.

The problem we are solving is digital illiteracy in township and rural areas of South Africa. Even though South Africa has the highest digital illiteracy in the continent, it still has a high digital illiteracy rate of at least 40%.

The contributing factors of this problem are unemployment. In fact, South Africa has one of the unemployment rates in the world and 75% companies admitted that they seek skills outside the country.

According to Statistics South Africa - there are 22 943 schools kids affected by this problem. In fact, last year we taught 6 951 school kids computers for the first time and one 9-year old girl cried as she was scared to touch a mouse.

We have also trained people between the ages of 19 to 34 and it was sad to notice that majority of them had never touched a computer in their lives.

While the rest of the world is talking about the Fourth Industrial, Africa is sadly still in the dark ages.

Therefore, many people are affected by this problem and it contributes negatively to the country’s growth and inequality, which is among some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

In Mdantsane Township, there are 25 721 children between ages of 10 to 19 and 42 972 people between 20 to 34 years of age. According to South African Statistics 22 943 of these school kids and 11 860 young people are digital illiterate.

To understand these people needs and allow them to participate in the solution, we have had several pilot phases that were funded by our sponsors and sometimes offered very cheaply in order to understand their feedback so we can provide a more customized solution for the overall community.   

The pain that young people is a lack of skills required from them to get decent jobs and our solutions will help them get the skills necessary to participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 

With kids, we are able to make learning fun for them and this makes learning fun and thus improves their grades. This is important since our province for the past seven years has been the lowest performing province in the country.

Most importantly since we are located in the communities where these people reside in we save them lots of traveling time, distance and thus money to get digitally literate.

Our solution is providing digital literacy in townships and rural areas. We have a centre in our township where people come in and are taught computer skills from basic to advance. We have partnerships with Siyafunda Community Technology Centre, Ripples for Change and CISCO Academy.

For school kids there are two options, where kids can come to our centres after school or we go to the schools and teach them. We travel with our laptops as well as project and are in partnership with each school’s principal about this initiative and are in talks with the department of education to roll it over the district.

We also do the same to rural areas as they are far from our centre. And we work mostly with our partners Ripples for Change.

Our courses are through the CISCO Academy are accredited and our students are preferred by several major international firms. This is important for these students, as they cannot afford to go the tertiary institutions in our country. Our students come to our centres, offered these courses online and guided by our facilitator that has been trained by the CISCO academy.

What makes our solution innovative is that we offer the service in a different manner than the old traditional model.

The townships and rural areas have buying power however not a lot of institutions have tapped into these market. Even in the book titled, "Fortune at the Bottom of The Pyramid is a testimony to this.

We are innovative by providing convenience to our customers.

Our solution is a new business model and this is online education. Online education may already be in existence in the first world countries however in Africa, including South Africa it has not really been tapped into. Most institutions cannot be afforded by the majority of the community members and are further from places of residence. However with this model we can go to places and offer courses in relation to the demand. And can scale in as many places as demand allows.

"If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it,” Albert Einstein said. 

 We expect our solution to address this problem because there are statistics that back a skills shortage gap in South Africa and that the only way to solve this problem is through digital literacy improvement especially in rural areas. 

Unemployment in the country is currently at its highest point in history and companies are seeking skills outside and with CISCO and Partners we will be able to close this skills gap shortage. 

 Also because of the convenience that we provide to our students, the cost-effective prices in comparison to those of competition and the internationally accreditation of the courses that we are offering would certainly be the reasons we expect our solution to solve this problem. 

Based on an article by Business Tech on 15 July 2019: " The IT, business & management and finance sectors are undoubtedly the most sought after sectors, followed by the sales, admin, office & support and architecture & engineering sectors, among others listed."  

 And considering that we provide IT related courses then we are indeed solving this challenge for our country.

Currently we are serving at least 10 000 school children and about 1 000 young people (between ages of 19 to 34).

Within the next year we will be serving 73 000 schools kids and 27 000 youth.

Within the second and third year we will be serving about 100 000 school kids and 40 000 youth.

And finally in five years we will be serving 140 000 school kids and 50 000 youth.

Our five year plan is to have centres in at least four of our largest district municipalities. These are the most populated areas and will allow for our solution to achieve the biggest possible impact.

The identified areas are as follows:

OR Tambo (Mthatha)

Chris Hani (Queenstown)

And Alfred Nzo (Bizana)

We are currently located in Buffalo City District Municipality (City of East London) and our city is centre between Mthatha and Queenstown. This will make it easier for us to manage newers centres in these locations as they are closer to our already existing centre.

Changing Strategy

We will be continually assessing performance to keep pace with today’s business environment. This continual assessment can have an impact on our long-term strategy and as a result will be considered when developing a strategic plan. When the market dictates a change in strategy, our goals will be adjusted to reflect that change.

Lack of Resources

Our success is dependent on three things – people, time and money. We will incorporate annual goals into the budgeting process to ensure the resources are available to support the people, within the planned time and money.

Risk of Theft

And finally theft of valuable resources such as laptops, particularly when travelling with them to rural areas. To mitigate this we will avoid teaching in areas that are far from the towns and only travel with resources in townships and areas where we know that the is no high crime rate.

Changing Strategy

We will be continually assessing performance to keep pace with today’s business environment. This continual assessment can have an impact on our long-term strategy and as a result will be considered when developing a strategic plan. When the market dictates a change in strategy, our goals will be adjusted to reflect that change.

Lack of Resources

Our success is dependent on three things – people, time and money. We will incorporate annual goals into the budgeting process to ensure the resources are available to support the people, within the planned time and money.

Risk of Theft

And finally theft of valuable resources such as laptops, particularly when travelling with them to rural areas. To mitigate this we will avoid teaching in areas that are far from the towns and only travel with resources in townships and areas where we know that the is no high crime rate.

And for all social and legal barrier are working with major stakeholders such as the department of education and telecomunications.

We are also working with local leaders and businesses in areas that we are operating in so that they are clear about our service and its benefits to the community members.

Our team is made up of  7 people.

Sinelizwi, Noma and Tumi are our female facilitators.

Where as Enerst and Phiri are our male facilitators.

Nomfundo is our receptionists and Richard our systems technician.

Sinelizwi, Noma and Tumi are our female facilitators.

Where as Enerst and Phiri are our male facilitators.

Nomfundo is our receptionists and Richard our systems technician.

Sinelizwi has a diploma in software engineering and currently studying towards her degree. Tumi has a masters degree and a very experience facilitator and works very well with kids. Enerst and Phiri have strong stage presence and are good facilitators and are accreditted.

Richard is currently doing an international degree in software engineering and has a deep passion for computers.

Nomfundo has experience in admin management.

Noma works well with kids.

All our teams members are good and passionate about they they do because they have the necessary skills and passion required to teach.

I, Xola Vonya, have an engineering background. I have more than 5 years work experience. I have passionate for people development especially those that are in disadvantaged areas. I am passionate about improving the lives of people through education. I have a great relationship with the department of education and local community as well as government leaders.

We have partnered with Siyafunda CTC, Ripples for Change and CISCO Academy.

Siyafunda is one of the largest community centres in the country and has a good relationship with the minister of telecommunications. Besides the financial support that they assist us with on pilot proojects they assist with content and provide a trajectory of the global technology and most importantly the network that comes by being their partners.

Ripples for Changes has a good connections in the rural areas and they do not do any training however they always outsource all training to us...and this again increases our revenues and makes it easier to tap into the rural market. 

Working with the department of education and employment partners makes us even more credible.

To provide these courses our centre pays a once-off annual licence to CISCO of about $250.

The cheapest course costs is $4 where the most expensive cost is $250.

South Africans spend an average of $180 on education annually.

We will generate most of our revenue from payments made to attend our courses, mainly by walk-in students.

Our additional revenue streams could be from the department of education, both basic and higher education.

The department of basic education is on course to start introducing IT related courses in schools and we have good relationship with the Minister of Education.

These are the key expected operational costs:

• CISCO Annual Licence
• Rental Costs
• Our onsite Facilitators – including salaries.
• Data and telephone costs.
• Insurance for the resources.
• Marketing and sales.

The cost of these courses in South African universities (which is some of our competitions) is on average $1 000. This excludes the time costs associated with travelling or rental for students that may be forced to relocate closer to these institutions.

Other centres that are similar to us offered these courses at $500. Besides the competitive price, location is also a huge competitive advantage to us.

Most universities struggle with number of enrolment and we could assist them by taking some of the students into our centres.

This would be guaranteed revenue as higher education is subsidized by the government in previously disadvantaged areas.

In May, we had a pilot phase that generated $233.

The business would sustain itself when generating a revenue of $3 320, expenses of $2 156, and have an operating income of $1 164, at 35% margins.

Other revenue opportunities are training offers that we get from other institutions.

• Such as in June from CHIETA… $2 366.
• Africa Code Month in October through SAP. 
  • Estimated revenue $10 000.
• To increase assets of the business we will be operating in a house that is in very busy area with the option of rent-to-buy.
• In this house, we will cater for more students while growing our assets.
• This will definitely increase equity and profit margins.

We are applying to Solve to gain exposure on how to build our business better.

We believe that MIT and Solve has lot's of experienced professionals that can give us the direction to take our business to the next level.

We are mostly interested in the opportunity of being mentored by the best not only in the industry but in the world too. 

The fact that there's an opportunity for funding is a bonus.

We would use this money to impact more of our community.

Basically this money would is equivalent to two year's running costs for us. 

Therefore it would allow us to build traction and offer our solution at a cheaper price for the first or two years if possible.

This means more impact with less cost from our community members.

Based on our calculations this prize money is equivalent to a year's running costs for our organisation. 

It would then allow us to scale our centre to other areas and that increase/scale our impact.

This means more impact with less cost from our community members.