ACTIVATE! Academy Rural Capacity Hub

We want to solve the digital inclusivity and education access divide in rural communities in South Africa and potentially in Africa. 

Access and adoption of online learning in rural communities are very real challenges and barriers that prevent young people from growing capacity to find work, grow their own initiatives or enter tertiary education opportunities. These challenges have been in play for some time and remain unsolved for millions of Africas youth. 

We are proposing solving this, not through bricks and mortar projects, but through locally supported technology access solutions supporting the delivery of online learning journeys in local languages that can add significant opportunity to capacity building across skills, knowledge, mindset and interconnectedness. 

Our distributed online-offline platform could be easily scaled to support thousands of rural communities and with future satellite based connectivity options we could see rural development through a completely new lens. 

The problem we are focussing on is digital inclusivity and education opportunities for young South Africans in rural communities. This however is an Africa wide challenge. 

When you visit a rural community you are often confronted with young people sitting around waiting for something to happen. In South Africa this is usually the result of failing education at a rural level and also massive barriers that young people face. These barriers include lack of access to resources and support, language barriers, access to educational opportunities and also technology barriers both from a personal skills perspective but also device and systems. 

There are over 5 million young South Africans, almost 10% of the population living in rural areas with no jobs or opportunities available to them, at least in their minds. Many who we work with already have given up any hope for a better future. 

When understanding the challenge they face we have uncovered some valuable truths, given the right mix of capacity building and support and resources and opportunities they break through the barriers and emerge as economic participants moving up the socio economic ladder and also providing much needed opportunities for others in their communities. 

The solution has four elements

1. Access through technology to online content - a community partnership 

This requires a partnership with local communities in creating hot spots that enable the distribution of our capacity-building platform. This has been achieved through our current youth hubs projects. This enables students of the online Academy to join the platform, enroll in courses, join online lectures and work groups and feed off our rich resources. 

2. Capacity building through online courses in the mother tongue - adoption 

This requires deploying a rich capacity-building platform for young people to grow their confidence and strength, build up their skills, access and engage with knowledge communities and find their feet in opening up jobs, further education, or own business opportunities. We have already demonstrated success with this through our current Academy offering with over 3000 registered students.

3. Initiative and business ideas Incubator - pathways to a better future

This requires an end-to-end solution where through local, provincial, and national partners we offer students a pathway to their own business with a focus on partners that also mentor and support resources through the growth of ideas into reality and ideas that stay the course. 

4.Devices and equipment

Through the 4th element providing devices and equipment to support digital inclusion and participation, this solution will be a key evidence-based approach to supporting the digital inclusion of rural youth into the mainstream educational and economic opportunities in addition to supporting a firm foundation of not only accessibility but also for the success of elements 1-3 mentioned above.

We want to work with the most isolated young South Africans, the ones who have the poorest access to resources, the ones who have the most limited education and the most limited opportunities. We know the above through our engagements with youth across various geographical environments from rural and semi-urban environments and as informed by previous project evaluations of some projects we have engaged in. With this knowledge and shared experiences through our project the solution will impact lives in the following ways:

1. Grow local digital infrastructure and access points

2. Grow digital literacy

3. Grow capacity

4. See education levels rise and a rise in the percentage of youth accessing the job market and further educational institutions

5. Growth in local businesses run by local community members who have accessed the Academy through local infrastructure, changing the economic prospects of the community 

Digital inclusion of rural youth within education has been a challenge for many, thereby not providing an equal playing field and opportunity for rural youth to actively participate in the socio-political economy of their context hence the inevitable complex challenges that affect youth in rural communities. Through our solution:

If we don't change access we will not solve the challenge

If we don't change digital literacy, utilizing local language capacity we will not solve the challenge

If we don't do them together as an interconnected chain supported by thought leaders, mentors and coaches we will not solve the challenge

We have grown the Academy to a point where we are moving past prototype and piloting elements of the solution in various communities. 

We are piloting a capacity building component in a deep rural community in Mphanama in Limpopo that has seen a number of huge steps in proving the concept, where addressing access, content and language can lead to some very big achievements, and also a good insight into scaling.

We are also piloting in areas around the country where internet is not available at all and digital resources need to be shared locally

Our innovation is not in the technology, the content or the process but with how the solution is integrating all of these elements in harmony for use by rural communities. It is a little like a dance where each step needs to be well rehearsed and precise otherwise the dance does not work. 

This innovation relies on community engagement and involvement and commitment as well as the merging together of technologies and capacity building content that are well suited to local conditions, requirements and challenges. 

The systems need to work in harmony with the local team that work in harmony with the online content that work in harmony with the incubators that work in harmony with the opportunities and partners system

The current enrolled student base is over 3000 but the rural/peri urban component is currently only 1320. 

Our target is to grow the platform to over 30000 students a year with a 30% rural focus through this proposed solution - a target of 9000 annual rural students. 

Each impact area has attached a developing dashboard showcasing the indicators we are measuring across both quantitative and qualitative elements.

An example of an impact goal measure change state dashboard is below which will have associated indicators that we can track across students, communities and regions over time

Internal

• Mindset for success

• Confidence and a strong sense of self

• Practical skills and easily accessible knowledge resources

• Real skills to ideate, develop, grow and deliver high impact civil society initiatives

• Growing a strong sense of self

• Building growth mindset 

• Experiential platforms

• Agility, adaptability and initiative

• Interconnectedness and collaboration across networks and growing social capital

  External

• Young entrepreneurs running their own initiatives

• Greater employment opportunities

• Civil society impact and capacity improvements

• Deep democracy growth

• Agency

32 people

22 full time

10 contractors

The team is well skilled

Areas of competence

• Web systems
• Servers
• Hardware and software
• Licensing
• Learning material content development
• Video skills
• Worksheets and accredited program development 
• Training program management
• Digital facilitation skills
• Community engagement
• Residential training
• Community resource management
• Community stakeholder management
• Quality Management Systems

We are fully committed to diversity and inclusivity sourcing skills that balance life experience, work experience, and demographics. We have a strong focus on women in the team with the majority of staff being women (60%) with all three senior management positions filled by women. In line with our Black Economic Empowerment policy, we have 25 team members of colour. We also recruit where possible from rural communities and currently have 5 in-community staff. We also embrace an open and supportive culture, even though we all work remotely our engagement with each other is not hierarchical and we try to ensure that the values we are hunting on our platform are upheld, respect, care, family first, kindness, support, encouragement, development.  

We hope that we fulfil any expectation with regards to diversity and inclusivity.

We want to join the solver network and be a part of a growing community of high impact practitioners from around the world. Being part of the value chain, community and network will help improve our performance and hopefully also realise our vision of an Africa wide solution with Africa wide partners.

We are a small team with a big heart and need help to scale. We hope we have a good model and a good product but strengthening our team, our board, and the model, and strengthening our finances, will all positively impact our ability to make a big difference to those young people we serve for the greater good of the local community and national development of South Africa but also aligned in addressing regional and international development goals that align with United Nations (UN), African Union (AU)

Mostly solve members

Refugees and refugee camps are a potential target for the Academy based on our shared solution, where very quickly we can be integrated into these transient and very isolated communities and through the offering drop capacity to acclimatise, integrate, connect to opportunities, connect to educational resources and also grow new local initiatives with support. It may be a little past our experience area to date but is on our target list. 

We think that we are well placed to apply for this prize if we are successful at changing the lives of rural youth through these local platforms. 

One of the most important groups we will focus on are women in isolated communities and advancing their opportunities to succeed in life.