MTalks Hubs

One in every three young people in South Africa is unemployed: up 70% living in rural live areas. Mtalks provides a project-based learning approach that uses technology services in order to create employment for youth, while building digital skills. Our project handling is done by minimizing our projects into smaller scales of work or tasks in order to redistribute to youth,this is accompanied by the training required in order complete the task, where they, in turn, get to make money on work completed. 

 1 in every 3 young people in South Africa is unemployed: up 70% living in rural live areas, between ages 18 and 24.

• unemployment is highest and rising the fastest in the younger cohorts; the broad unemployment rate among 20 to 24-year-olds is estimated to be 52.3% compared to 36.0% for 25 to 29-year-olds

• Unemployment in South Africa also disproportionately affects youth who are black, female, and/or living in rural areas. In the long-term, a gap between youth finishing school and finding work will impact future wages and thus long-term wellbeing

• Unemployment among young women in South Africa can increase their vulnerability to HIV by increasing their economic dependence on male partners and potentially increasing unsafe sexual behaviors

To employ youth in rural areas to provide tech solutions to government & organisations, through our digital training program.

• Unique hybrid approach - Mtalks provides a project-based learning approach that uses technology (Data & digital solutions) services in order to create employment for youth, while building digital skills. Our project handling is done by the minimizing of our projects into smaller scales of work in order to redistribute to youth in our development programs, where they, in turn, get to make money on work completed. 

• Quality- Our resources and skills allow us to create a quality services and products

• Safety & Agility - MTalks provides secure facilities to work from and digital solutions that allow audiences to engage with the rest of the world in a trusted manner. We use reliable and safe platforms to keep data safe

• Empowering - We create solution developers within rural areas who are able to generate income by solving real-life problems faced within industries. All our programs are motivational and geared at building the confidence of rural youth, proving relevance in society today.

Mtalks seeks to help build opportunities for youth  in minority communities (rural) especially those between ages ages 19-24. These are those who either couldn't get into university or college for various reasons and those who have skills and have little or no experience of work and can not be employed.

For the past 5 years myself and some of my team members have been in the edtech and youth development space. 

We have been responsible for building over 7 makerspaces (digital hubs), where young people have been able to engage with technology while solving real-life issues. 

In 2012-2018 I founded ran a company that was contracted to help the City of Cape Town map the western cape taxi routes. We were responsible for recruiting, training, and payrolling over 300 young people, and for collecting, managing, analysing, and reporting on the data, which was used for the Western Cape My Citi bus projects. 

I grew up in a rural area and have been doing market research in order to plant our first 4 hubs in rural North West Province of South Africa. I am engaging with potential clients, rural youth, rural communities and various stakeholders for best ways of implementation. 

The problem is youth unemployment, our solution is to provide digital solutions to big cooperate and earn money in order to redistribute to youth, while developing their skills and our business. To accomplish this we will need to provide reliable quality services to cooperates, and that we will do through our hubs by combining talent and resources for better capacity. Cooperates will be able to give back into communities in a meaningful way and earn governmental benefits for their business. Young people will get to build skills, confidence and experience in order to better qualify for the work space. 

Globally MTalks competes with companies such as Samasource and local competitors would be companies such as Harambee and various impact sourcing companies. Upon coming up with the solution I was particularly impressed with Samasource as an organisation, although very similar the difference or what would sets MTalks apart from such an organisation would be our project based learning approach that allows us to focus more on the training or upskilling of rural youth. Our training spreads through a variety of digital skills that allow us to link each learning activity with the task at hand, this helps us create incentive for upskilling, as our students would make more money from higher level of skill. 

Our business model allows cooperates that make over R50 million in turnover to earn empowerment points for governmental benefits on tax, should they make use of our services; providing a win for all stakeholders. Our model allows cooperates to in a way create their own groups of individual who will be responsible for taking on projects within their organisations, so companies get to "harness" or "grow" their own skills that are fitting with their particular needs while empowering rural youth.

The key success to our solution is our platform that allows us to break up projects into smaller tasks and link them up with the necessary content or study for the skill required to complete the task. 

Our platform allows cooperates to create these "hubs" of skill as it were, where they are able to leverage from while empowering communities.

Through the platform we are able to enroll onboard youth from various rural communities and leverage them off as service providers to surrounding businesses. 

Each hub member creates a profile that allows them to build a track record as they take on tasks, showing performance. This helps create better resemes when looking for jobs but more specifically better resumes in order to acquire funding for further educational pursuits.

Our technology is not new and is a combination of already existing technology. The Samasource samahub is a great example https://www.samasource.com/hubfs/Collateral/SamaHub%20Solution%20Brief%202019.pdf
and elearning platforms that have already been used in rural communities to deliver education such as Chalkboard education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=DWWXSP5YFaw&feature=emb_title

The MTalk platform supports the on the groundwork that we would be already doing as MTalks and would be a combination of a type of samahub and chalkboard with a few tweaks in order to better cater to the need at hand.

Our company is taking on the challenge of youth unemployment, specifically in minority groups such as rural areas. Most youth between ages 19-24 are faced with unemployment because of lack of skills and or work experience; as MTalks we provide skills development that gives work experience, by creating teams in rural communities that provide or serve as service providers for digital skills to big corporates. In turn youth are able to earn income, build skills and social confidence. This is our approach to rural development, by empowering young people to better handle community challenges. 

At the moment the specific solution described here is in idea phase and has not officially launched, however our team is using the similar model on our level and we are a team of 3 catering to 1 client at moment. 

A year after launch we will have at least 4 hubs in 4 different communities with each hub catering to at least 100 young people and 3 clients, so a total of 400 young people in the next year will be impacted directly by MTalks.

5 years from now we will have hubs spread across various african countries, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Nigeria specifically, with at least 100 hubs in each country catering to total minimum of 1000000 young people. 

Mtalks seeks to establish itself as youth development agency that offers accredited content by partnering with governmental, cooperate and  various curriculum providers in South Africa in the next year. We are looking at partnering with at least 10 rural communities to establish 6 mini hubs (less infrastructure and resource) and 4 well established hubs, and have 3 cooperates that have capacity of employing our hubs. We aim to partner with government and have at least 400 youth sponsored by government to learn with us. 

The next five years will be a pursuit of scaling up the work done in year 1 across at least 5 African countries and creating a unified business involvement between the countries to have youth in developing countries have opportunity for employment. IN the next 5 years we plan to reach and impact 1000000 young people across the African continent with our work. 

Our model requires 3 main parties involvement for it to successfully run (1) A client, we need a corporation that makes over R50million in turnover to adopt a hub or hubs so that we can set up in a rural area. 

(2) We also accredited digital training content in order to qualify as a facilitator so that government can sponsor the students we enroll

(3) We need to build the platform that requires funding 

Another barrier would be the infrastructure development of the hubs where we have the right resources to compliment the skills we have for competency in service delivery, which also requires funding. 

The other barrier is funding the team required in order for MTalks to rollout

As much as these are barriers they are not impossibilities but just steps required for us to effectively set up our operations. 

(1) In order to acquire a client of such caliber MTalks we need to be able to be BBBEE compliant (SA government empowerment regulations), as a benefit for any company that adopts a hub. To do this all we need to do is to be registered as an black african owned company. We would also need to effectively present the BBBEE model through a business plan. 

(2) To be accredited we will partner with an already accredited training provider that provides content for the skills we offer.

(3) To build the platform, develop infrastructure and fund our team we will apply for funding and do pitches such as these in order to fund our platform

Our Team currently holds 1 permanent employee and 3 part-time staff. Once funding is available we will hire 5 more permanent employees to fill the roles required.

Marvelous Matlou (Permanent)

Founder 

Stefan Wildschut (Part-time)

Research & Development

Siyabonga Luvatsha (Part-time)

Developer

Julia Mentor (Part-time)

Program Director

MTalks has over 5 years of cumulative experience in education, technology, entrepreneurship, and product development. 

As a result of the services MTalks provides, organizations have been able to build products, improve service delivery, and effectively manage critical information. Which has allowed them to raise capital and generate more income. 

We have been responsible for building over 7 makerspaces (digital hubs) in the western cape, where young people have been able to engage with technology while solving real-life issues. We have built specially tailored curriculums that have empowered the South African underprivileged young person with digital skills and developed tech products that have made learning more innovative, creative, fun, and very practical.

In 2017-2018 one of the companies the founder had founded at the time (Hallabak Telecoms currently trading as Teambix) was contracted to help the City of Cape Town map the western cape taxi routes. The technology for this project was provided by Gometro Pty Ltd, and Hallabak was responsible for recruiting, training, and payrolling over 300 young people. The company was responsible for collecting, managing, analysing, and reporting on the data, which was used for the Western Cape My Citi and Rustenburg Ravaya bus project.

Our team has the necessary skills and experience to deliver the solution and most importantly we also know who we would need to employ or partner with to give us an even better position.

Existing partnerships

MTalks is currently in partnership with SEDA for business development and governmental networking.

We are looking at partnering with Explore data science academy as the accredited content provider.

MTalks is also in liaison with Chalkboard education as partner for the development of our online hub tool.
We also plan partnering with The Sun City group for engagement with rural communities specifically in the North West region of South Africa.

MTalks is a B2B business that provides digital and data services to corporates to help improve their service and product offerings. How this is done is that corporates that make over R50million in turnover get to adopt our hubs as their solutions and services provider, these services include data management storage and collection, website development, content creation, digital marketing and various digital services. The corporates also gain governmental tax benefits from hubs they adopt. MTalks would make money on projects and in turn the youth in the hubs get to build skills and earn income of tasks completed. MTalks would also be able to raise funds from government because of the accredit courses we offer and employment created for youth. 

Mtalks will be providing data and digital services to businesses to generate revenue and will also looking into partnering with corporates for loans and grants in order to adopt a hub that will be their personal digital and data solutions provider, their incentive will be the governmental benefit of scoring on BBBEE points with every adopted hub and using our services. As a facilitator of accredited courses we will be able to generate funding from government for youth training and also youth employment, this will be able to keep the businesses sustainable.

The success of MTalks is through providing quality services to clients and in training youth with the relevant skills that can set them apart from those who would traditionally apply for jobs. To this effectively we must have a highly skilled team and partners that can help us create high quality services and content for training. Even though we will require funding if we are able to build a strong qualified team or network of partners, we will have an easier run at raising capital. We also require great mentoring for busniess development that can help us cater to a global economy and we believe that Solve offers the platform to build such networks and teams.

MTalks model lies on 3 key success factors.

1) Organizational partnership: these are mainly corporates that would be willing to take up the "risk" of adopting a hub in a rural area in order to help create employment. 

2) Content creation: partnering with an accredited skills provider and act as a facilitator for that content

3) Technology partnership: to create a safe platform for both our clients and students.

We are considering partnering with the following organisations to create a more professional service offering. 

MIT faculty for digital and data content and possibly design of the MTalks platform

Solve members for business mentoring and coaching to help compete on a global level.

 1 in every 3 young people in South Africa is unemployed: up 70% living in rural live areas, between ages 18 and 24 and most of these are female individuals.

Unemployment in South Africa also disproportionately affects youth who are black, female, and/or living in rural areas. MTalks creates a solution to bridge the gap between young girls finishing school and finding work to impact future wages and thus long-term wellbeing

Unemployment among young women in South Africa can increase their vulnerability to HIV by increasing their economic dependence on male partners and potentially increasing unsafe sexual behaviors, keeping these girls in training and making income helps better position them to avoid these behaviours. 

We create solution developers within rural areas who are able to generate income by solving real-life problems faced within industries, All our programs are motivational and geared at building the confidence of rural youth to help inspire them for entrepreneurship and social improvement. 

MTalks will also be using hub resources and skills to help drive graduates into starting and developing social initiatives to improve their communities, to help them stand better chances at being financed for these solutions. 

MTalks focuses on 4th industrial revolution upskilling and unlike most development & training agencies Mtalks provides a project-based learning approach that uses technology to solve social issues, in order to build digital skills among youth.

Our goal is to create hubs (teams) of digitally skilled creative problem solvers within rural areas, that can generate income through services provided to organisation locally and globally, to advance inclusive economic growth through upskilling and greater digital literacy.

MTalks plans on delivering data solutions to corporates and even though it is at a minimal level we still plan on improving our service offering through the use of various technology and data offerings. 

These data solutions include being able to collect data within communities and provide more relevant solutions to combat social issues experienced within those communities.