SpanLula-Access to digital skills & jobs

South Africa has a youth unemployed rate of more than 50%, whereas according to our country’s ICT Skills survey, there are hundreds and thousands of vacancies available in the technology sector. Therefore, there is a clear gap between unemployed young women and the skills training as well as job opportunities that exist for them in the technology sector. Our solution is a web and mobile application that provides unemployed young women from historically disadvantaged communities such as townships and rural areas convenient access to the skills & job opportunities in the technology sector. These are the young women that usually don’t have access to information about the opportunities that exist to develop themselves & their families economically.

According to StatSA, South Africa has a youth unemployment rate of 53%, with the female youth unemployment rate at 31.3%. The South African ICT skills survey states that there are hundreds and thousands of unfilled vacancies in the technology industry, yet there are millions of unemployed young women. This drove us to find the missing link between the unemployed young women and the recruiters at organizations looking for technology skilled youth. Our research shows that most unemployed young women do not have access to the relevant information about the technology skills training or job opportunities that exist for that to make the best of.

SpanLula will be an online platform built as a web & mobile application that will grant unemployed young women from rural areas and townships, access to skills training and job opportunities from the convenience of their mobile devices. SpanLula will be built as a Progressive Web Application (PWA) to make it easier for the app to work both on mobile and web, as well as work offline for low bandwidth areas like the rural areas. The young women will be able to sign up, create a profile, get linked to & obtain technology skills training based on their interest, and lastly get linked to a job opportunity after obtaining their technology skills and certifications. The future of SpanLula includes becoming a recruitment platform for the public & private organizations that have unfilled vacancies that require tech-skilled candidates. SpanLula will make use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies to match the tech-skilled young women to the most relevant job opportunities based on their profile & interests.

Young unemployed women aged 18-35 years from historically disadvantaged communities such as the townships and rural areas of South Africa. We have conducted multiple information sessions with young women and youth-focused organizations in townships and rural areas. We've also conducted a survey to understand and gauge the needs of unemployed young women so they can develop themselves economically. These engagements enlightened us that one of the challenges faced by young women was the limited access to information about economic development opportunities and the inconvenience of having to travel to the city/urban areas to gain access to these opportunities. It is vital for us to engage the young women after they've obtained tech-skilled and get placed into jobs, as they will form part of our success stories and testimonials. Engagements with them will also be utilized for the collection of feedback and key insights that help us understand the overall impact of the project on young women. The solution will not only be granting them access to the information they need, but also a stepping stone for them to develop themselves economically.

The young women we've engaged with in our Research & Development phase highlighted that most of them have been made to believe that careers in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) were for men and too hard for women. Some findings also highlighted to us the cultural changes that will be required for our initiative to be a success and we were able to identify the change management interventions that will be relevant. The conclusion of all these findings motivated our approach of giving preference to young women, especially young mothers as our contribution to empowering Women in STEM.

Competitors that provide digital skills training as well as linkages to job opportunities are Quirky30, Umuzi, WeThinkCode, mLab CodeTribe & Project Codex. Our competitive advantage and key differentiation to them is that our product is an e-Learning solution instead of a physical training centre so we even reach out and impact unemployed youth in the last mile, i.e rural & historically disadvantaged communities.

Even though there are existing players in the industry that we’ve identified as our competitors, our competitive advantage and key differentiation to them is that our product is an e-Learning solution instead of a physical training centre. This means that we can reach out to unemployed youth in the last mile, i.e rural & historically disadvantaged communities.

However, even with these organizations in the industry, there is still a lot to be done as most of SA’s tech businesses are still constrained by the digital skills gap. Disruptive digital and e-commerce businesses are growing at such unprecedented rates that the gap between the staff they need and the talent available in the marketplace is widening. Matt Putman, CEO of iKhokha said that candidates often lack the technical know-how and experience required to develop globally competitive solutions. 

SpanLula will be built as a Progressive Web Application (PWA). SpanLula will be a Progressive Web App that is a web applications that has been designed to be capable, reliable, and installable. These three pillars transform the app into an experience that feels like a native application. It will be built and enhanced with modern APIs to deliver native-like capabilities, reliability, and installability while reaching anyone, anywhere, on any device with a single codebase. 

As a PWA the SpanLula app will be:

Progressive - Work for every user, regardless of browser choice & built with progressive enhancement as a core tenet.

Responsive & works on desktop, mobile, tablet.

Enhanced with service workers to work offline or on low quality networks.

Use the app-shell model to provide app-style navigation and interactions.

Automated service worker update process.

Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and tampering with content.

Be identifiable as an “application” with W3C manifests and service worker registration scope for search engines to it.

Have push notifications for re-engagement.

Installable to the home screen without the hassle of an app store.

The SpanLula apps will work offline & cache app data to display.

Service workers will provide a programmatic way to cache app resources.

There are only a few of our competitors that provide a combination of digital skills training as well as linkages to job opportunities. These competitors are;

Quirky30

They provide free physical training for one year in coding, design, the Cloud and entrepreneurship then link graduates to job opportunities. 

WeThinkCode

They work within an ecosystem of public and private partners to source and train world-class African digital talent as well as provide students with a clear path to employment.

Umuzi

Umuzi works with leading employers to equip talented young people with the scarce digital skills they need to access high-value careers and thrive in the fourth industrial revolution. 

Project Codex

codeX helps youth learn practical skills in the tech industry and helps youth find tech jobs that suit their interests and ambitions.

mLab CodeTribe

mLab increases the skills of talented young ICT enthusiasts by providing them a learning environment where they build real world products as part of a 1 year program.

All of these solutions are working and successfully creating the impact they aim to create, however all of them provide physical training and are therefore limited by the potential impact they can create on a larger scale.

Inputs

• Upskilling young unemployed women with the highly in-demand technology skills such as web development, data science & cybersecurity.
• Linking young unemployed women to job opportunities once they've obtained the relevant technology skills.

Outputs

• Young unemployed women obtain skills and certification in a technology field that is highly in demand of candidates.
• Young women become employed in the technology field.

Outcomes

• The unemployment rate decreases due to the number of young women becoming employed.
• More young women are included in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM).
• The employed young women develop themselves, their families and their communities economically now that they earn a living.

Our solution is currently in test phase and we have only linked 5 young women to technology skills training.

• Within 12 months, we target to have served a minimum of 150 young women by linking them to technology skills training & job opportunities.
• Our overall goal is to serve and impact a minimum of 1,500 unemployed young women across Southern, East & West Africa by upskilling them with technology skills training & job opportunities.

Short-term Goal

• Our goal for the financial year of 2020/21 is to launch our Minimum Viable Product and acquire a minimum of 1500 unemployed young women to obtain technology skills training and be linked to jobs in the technology sector.

Long-term Goal

• In a period of five years, we target to have acquired a minimum of 6,000 young women to obtain technology skills training and be linked to jobs in the technology sector.
• By 2025, we plan to have scaled the SpanLula app across the Southern, East & West African regions.

External Barrier

• The COVID19 pandemic and the lockdown regulations imposed by the South African Government has been a barrier to the scheduled prototype launch in May. It has been hard to have ideation sessions and engagements with our CTO, which has caused problems for him to continue working on the prototype due to limited access to the technology resources we need.

Financial Barrier

• The startup is currently being bootstrapped and runs the risk of being a completely self-funded project as it is hard to receive traditional funding. The limit on financial resources is also negatively impacting operational success.

We've leveraged on the existing tools that we have for collaboration and engagement to ideate on how to build the prototype.

• We've used social media to raise a little awareness about SpanLula and a survey to gain feedback on how to build the Prototype.
• We are proud to say that we'll be internally testing an alternative version of the prototype with an exclusive group of up to 50 young women starting end of July.

Financial Barrier

• We are using platforms live VC4A to gain access to funding opportunities such as the SOLVE challenges.
• Once the recruiter platform version of the SpanLula app is launched, we will be launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the scaling of SpanLula across the regions we target to reach.

SpanLula is an innovative technology platform that’s bridging the digital skills gap in South Africa. The software is a socio-economic solution developed by Kakanyo Business Solutions.

Kakanyo Business Solutions is a software development company that’s building innovative technology solutions that solve Pan-African socio-economic challenges. The challenges we’re addressing are the digital skills gap as well as the late adoption and use of technology by Pan-African SMEs.

Full-time

• 3

Advisors

• 1

Our business is founded, managed, advised and supported by a Pan-African team of professionals who are passionate about using innovative technology to create socioeconomic solutions. We are founded by a team of Software Entrepreneurs who have an extensive network and we’ve attracted key individuals who are willing to contribute to the success of the business. As a startup team part of an experienced organization in South Africa’s ICT sector, the startup management team is led and guided by a board of directors and advisors. The startup management team will include the CEO, Malebo Ndiza, leading the startup and handling business development, the CTO, Nhlanhla Ndlovu, leading the technical infrastructure related to the development of the SpanLula mobile platform as well as the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design and optimization, lastly, the CIO, Andisa Ramanyimi leading all the Master Data Management of the platform.

Kakanyo Business Solutions

• As a startup project started within Kakanyo Business Solutions, the Directors of Kakanyo have agreed to incubate SpanLula, provide office space, internet and access to the key partnerships we need that they can help us to secure.

Technology Skills Training Partnerships

• Thanks to our partnership with Kakanyo, we have access to the technology skills training and certifications provided by some of Kakanyo's key technology partners
• These are key skills training partnerships with technology organizations such as;
  • CompTIA Africa
  • Amazon Web Service
  • IBM

SpanLula is a web and mobile app designed for unemployed youth to get digital skills training and linked to tech job opportunities. We’ll only charge 1-3% of their monthly salaries for 12 months once they’ve been employed. During this period, they’ll also be receiving post-placement support & further soft skills training. SpanLula’s positioning in the market is an innovative solution for youth to access digital skills training and job opportunities in the convenience of their mobile device. 

Public & private organizations will view SpanLula as the convenient platform to access digitally skilled talent and optimize their recruitment process to help fill the open vacancies that require tech-skilled talent. We'll charge these organizations a placement/recruitment fee of 5-10% of the candidates' annual salaries.

Our financial projections predict that it will take us 10 months to break-even and the business will require 45,000 USD to operate successfully before it starts making a profit.

We’ll potentially earn a total of 20,000 USD in revenue in the 1st year, R 120,000 USD in the 2nd year and 300,000 USD in the third year. After 5 years, we’ll earn a total of 1.1 million USD in revenue. 

Our Customer Acquisition cost is 20 USD and we’ll earn a Lifetime Value of 100 USD from each young person skilled and linked to a job on our platform. We project to acquire a total of 6000 digitally skilled youth using our platform in 5 years. 

Our startup costs are a total of 25,000 USD which will be mainly allocated for technology infrastructure, administrative activities as well as sales and promotional expenses for the 10 month period that the business will not be making a profit. 

The business requires a total 70,000 USD in funding to successfully startup, grow and scale the business efficiently across the Southern African District Countries and the East African Community. The funding will be allocated to Technology Infrastructure, Legal, Accounting and Administration costs as well as Sales & Marketing.

Entrepreneurship is sometimes a lonely path. Social Entrepreneurship on the other end, is only understood by a select few. Becoming a Solver means being part of a global network of like-minded individuals who are dedicated to sharing their expertise, network and advise to solutions that address social challenges. As a startup, SpanLula is definitely at a risk of being a self-funded project, therefore Becoming a Solver will help to mitigate that risk due to the access to grant funding. However, Becoming a Solver will be invaluable as we would have the opportunity of joining a supportive community of peers, funders, and experts who will all be dedicated to helping advance the innovative work done by SpanLula. 

We value the benefits that come from being part of a network of like-minded social entrepreneurs and getting sound mentoring and advisory from industry leaders & experts. These are all resources that we otherwise wouldn't be able to get access to from just getting funding and these are definitely resources and benefits that will be significant to the success and growth of our initiative.

The grant funding we'll have access to from Becoming a Solver will help to mitigate the risk of SpanLula becoming a self-funded project. As a platform that's aimed at providing access to technology skills training & job opportunities for young women, the MIT Solvers network will grant us access to the key partnerships that we need to create with public and private organizations that have unfilled technology vacancies. 

As a startup, it is vital for our success that we gain as much mentoring, advise and guidance as possible from industry experts and other successful social entrepreneurs.

• Business Model & Product/service distribution - The Solvers 9-month program will provide us with the relevant resources and advice we need to refine our business model to ensure the scalability of our initiative. It will also help us with determine Growth Hacking techniques that will allow us to distribute the mobile and web app at scale.
• Solution Technology - We plan to leverage from the technology expertise of MIT to ensure that we build a solid, scalable web and mobile application.
• Board members or advisors & Legal or regulatory matters - The strategic advise we'll receive is invaluable, especially with regards to legal matters such as IP protection, GDPR compliance etc.
• M&E - Becoming a Solver will help our startup with accountability. 

Google Digital Skills for Africa

• We strive to become one of the Strategic & Training Partners of Google Digital Skills for Africa and provide access to their training & certifications to our beneficiaries.

Microsoft 4Afrika

• We want to propose a strategic partnership with Microsoft 4Afrika that allows us API Access to their Virtual Academy so we can allow the users of the SpanLula app to stream and download free technology and business courses.
• An opportunity to partner & host an Microsoft SkillsLab and build a pipeline of talented youth.

Open edX

• We will partner with Open edX by using their Open Source technology to build a scalable e-learning platform.

In most of the info sessions and workshops we hosted in the past, there was a high attendance of young women and considering that it was during working hours, it was a clear indication that young women are the highest number of unemployed young people in rural areas and townships. As our initiative is focused on providing technology skills and job opportunities to young women, it is globally known that there is a shortage of female representation in the Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) professions. These young women were engaged and consulted in-depth on the type of economic development opportunities that would be most convenient for them. Engagements also led to understanding that most of them have been made to believe that careers in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) were for men and too hard for women. Some findings also highlighted to us the cultural changes that will be required for our initiative to be a success and we were able to identify the change management interventions that will be relevant. The conclusion of all these findings motivated our approach of giving preference to young women, especially young mothers as our contribution to empowering Women in STEM.

Young men and women in townships and rural areas have little or no access to information about the economic development opportunities that exist for them. Statistics South Africa shows that young people from these areas become discouraged to seek skills or job opportunities due to the influence of peers who have also given up on seeking economic development opportunities due to the believe that such opportunities are only meant for young people living in the urban and suburban areas.

As mentioned, in most of the info sessions and workshops we hosted in the past, there was a high attendance of young unemployed women, especially young mothers. They were engaged on the importance of access to economic development opportunities to help build a better future for their children and consulted in-depth on the type of economic development opportunities that would be suitable to them, most convenient for them or they'd be most interested in. Engagements also led to understanding their current knowledge about the opportunities that exist for them in the Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) fields.

The SpanLula mobile platform strives to use Artificial Intelligence to link the young women to technology skills training & job opportunities based on their profile, skills, learning styles and interests.

The AI for Humanity Prize can help us monitor & evaluate the success of our Artificial Intelligence technology to ensure the effectiveness of our AI. As winners of the AI for Humanity Prize, we'll also use the network to leverage on the Best Practices and latest technology that will make our AI most effective.