At various conferences, speeches from our Government, both local and national, and visits to foreign cities and chatting to people around us, people are saying similar things. We have made the following observations:
- Our country needs to create jobs.
- We can either create more of the same jobs or,
- Recognise that there are new job types emerging.
- We believe that we sit in a position to recognise those job types.
- We have the experience, resources and passion to reskill our nation.
As professionals, citizens and social activists our respective areas, we have an opportunity to make a meaningful, sustainable difference to the needs of our country, skilling up our fellow South Africans to take advantage of the jobs emerging new social networked economy around us and the world.
In our nation we are facing a new ‘struggle’. It is a struggle for survival in a globalized world where connectedness is the requirement for competitiveness. We need our nation to compete in the world in order to sustain the jobs it has. That world has given us a whole realm of new digital opportunities to take advantage of, now.
The struggle however is that we as Africans, stand at the back of the line with the world evolving from the digital economy to the learning economy. It is time that we, Africa, start to rise up and leverage our innate talents for communications and creativity. It is time for us to break our shackles and take on the struggle for digital liberation.
We need to go beyond the digital divide. We need to GROW!
Would you be interested in playing a part – to contribute, to challenge, to chat about the potential impact a digital academy could have as a sustainable skills factory? As a nation, we are all taking steps towards addressing the challenges of joblessness in different ways. We are not advocating any change to that, what we are suggesting is pulling our respective efforts, resources and networks to create a job engine for our collective future – as commercial, government and civil society.
The product of this initiative will be the creative nurturing of web skilled crew for commercial companies, government agencies and the non-profit sector to remain digitally relevant and empowered.
We invite you to join us in the battle…
The Founding Companies:
WooThemes provides top quality cutting edge WordPress themes and superior customer support. It was started by three top designers from three different countries with the objective to create themes that can compete with the best looking websites in the world, but that are also flexible and easy to customise. New themes are being released every month by some of the world’s leading designers so clients have a range of options at their disposal.
Reconstructed Living Lab (RLabs) is a global movement and registered Social Enterprise that provides innovative solutions to address various complex problems. It creates an environment where people are empowered to make a difference in the lives of others. The RLabs “main hub” is in Athlone, Cape Town but has activity in the UK, Europe, Asia and Central Africa. They provide social media consulting and training, mobile consulting services, strategy and product development, JamiiX “Social Chat” contact centre as well as research and development services.
The vision and driving source of Silulo Ulutho Technologies are three basic concepts: Technology, Knowledge and Empowerment. Based in Khayelitsha and with training and internet facilities in the surrounding townships in the Cape Metropolitan area, the partners and employees of Silulo are dedicated to inspiring others to take their futures into their own hands and empower and uplift themselves and their community through the power of knowledge and technology.
GivenGain, with offices in the UK, Switzerland and South Africa is a web-based platform serving the non-profit sector with cutting edge online publishing, donation processing, fundraising, database management and communication tools as well as services. In the past decade, the organisation has grown to serve over 400 organisations around the world, processing over R300 million in donations to over 2 500 projects from over 48 000 donors.
GetSmarter is a high-touch online education company, comprising 50 employees and a network of 15+ teachers. We work together with top universities and industry experts to present courses throughout South Africa. We have trained over 7,000 students in the past four years. We work with the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, Cambridge University Press,Random House Struik Publishing House and various industry experts to present online education throughout South Africa and abroad. GetSmarter is also the first and only entirely online training company to be accredited by any SETA (Sector Education and Training Authority) as a provider of education and training in South Africa. Institutional accreditation number: 3692.
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