Digital Work for the Unemployed

We are committed to alleviating poverty by empowering South Africans, who are subject to systemic poverty. With the use of technology, we provide the tools, education and economic activity to where it is most needed.

How it works:

1. The M4Jam platform provides users with digital training content and assessments via their smartphone device
2. Users are then able to access micro-tasks via their mobile phone and earn an income

Our solution positively changes people's lives by providing:

• Financial stability
• Economic inclusion
• Hope

To understand what the problem is, let's first explain how the South African economy is characterised:

• a relatively highly developed internet infrastructure 
• regulatory conditions supporting innovation 
• high levels of unemployment 
• a substantial informal sector • and extreme inequality

In addition, South Africa faces key challenges such as poverty, low levels of education and employment, as well as an urgent need for economic growth. We still have more than seven million people in this country that go to bed without food. We have kids today that are not in the education system. We have adults and youth with no opportunity for employment. 

The Challenge: Inequality, poverty and unemployment remain the main interdependent socio-economic triple challenges South Africa has to resolve. The Centre for Development and Enterprise has said the official unemployment rate of 42% is the world’s most severe unemployment crisis. In a country like South Africa, the gig economy can play a vital role in supplementing income and providing much-needed temporary employment. 

Our solution is a gig technology platform that offers impoverished communities in South Africa economic opportunities. We do this by connecting brands, government, or organisations to people and small businesses in communities via their mobile devices and leveraging the gig economy. The gig economy can play a vital role in supplementing income and providing much-needed temporary employment and we have positioned ourselves to bridge the gap between unemployment and employment in South Africa

Everything on the M4Jam platform is a micro-task. Every micro-task is paid for/incentivised. Our M-Commerce facilitates payment immediately (or on validation of the micro-task moving margin from ‘big to small’

Micro-tasks can be allocated to our gig workers (Jobbers) in a specific area/s; to specific Jobber/s; or to Jobbers with a certain rating or profile. Jobbers can also earn while building Jobber Armies (refer-to-earn).

The M4Jam platform is agile: it can train, communicate or empower in real-time. Simultaneously generating rich data sets; in rural and urban areas and creating a digital workforce.

Our objective is to serve the impoverished people of South Africa and provide digital working skills. South Africa’s unemployment rate (Stats SA) has been on the increase for some time, trending consistently upward from around 22-23% in 2008/9 to over 30% in Q1 2020. Since the pandemic, these numbers are even worse. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, three million South Africans have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic and subsequent lockdown.

Furthermore, the World Bank Group’s Poverty and Equity Brief, estimates that approximately 55.5% (30.3 million people) of South Africa’s population is living in poverty at the national upper poverty line (~$73.08) while a total of 13.8 million people (25%) are experiencing food poverty.

This is where M4Jam can make a substantial impact for those who need it the most

The profile of the people that we have assisted:

• 100% previously disadvantaged individuals
• 35% no household income
• 35% household income less than R1600 ($106)
• 70% jobbers <40 years old
• 65% of jobbers are female

Key Stats:

• Growth in jobbers registered on the platform in last year – 487000 (150% growth)
• 850,000 micro-jobs completed in 2020
• R22.8m ($1,5m) paid to Jobbers in 2020
• 12,322 people fed during lockdown

How Our Technology Touches Lives

During the lockdown, we pivoted our technology to help feed the hungry while promoting growth for community businesses (Spazas) by transforming the model of food parcel distribution. Watch Video. View real Results through Kerebetswa's story.

M4Jam's aim is to empower communities and the ecosystems that they are part of.

One of our three solutions, Community Connect, was able to assist a mine to create sustainable SMMEs in local communities. M4Jam’s tasking technology was used as a tender solution that notified all the local community of new job opportunities which could be pursued immediately through our app.

Ultimately, the mine was able to upskill members of the community and instil a sense of independence, so they would not have to rely on the mine for income.

View case study

We are looking into a few partnerships with international businesses.

Our app is constantly evolving into something new as we uncover more about South Africa's unique challenges.

We envision our users evolving into business owners. The more tasks the user completes the more they will learn and experience. Our model allows for users to advance into a "Master Jobber" whereby he/she is enabled to build and manage their own team of "Jobbers". As the product offerings grow and change, he/she will evolve into a nano-entrepreneur acquiring buying and selling techniques and enabling them to contribute positively to the economy and improve the lives of the people around them.

Our solution is unique as we partner with formal sector organisations that are looking to access emerging markets. These business relationships help us to create earning opportunities for the informal sector communities. The M4Jam is ultimately a mutually beneficial ecosystem helping address the socio-economic challenges we face. 

Unfortunately, most gig economy platforms live up to negative perceptions about gig worker vulnerability. The majority of platforms have taken no responsibility to assist and compensate workers. M4Jam is changing that. We're ranked in the top 10% of platforms worldwide by The Fairworks Project, for protecting its members from the economic fallout of Covid-19. We also offer personal accident cover for all M4Jam Jobbers (1st in SA). 

Our solution is built to upskill and grow the South African workforce. We envision our Jobbers evolving into business owners. The more tasks the jobber completes the more they will learn and experience. Our model allows for jobbers to advance into a Master Jobber whereby he/she is enabled to build and manage their own team of jobbers. He/she can acquire buying and selling techniques thereby enabling them to contribute positively to the economy and improve the lives of the people around them.

By working with corporate and government clients, M4Jam is changing the mindset of what the gig economy is. As organisations experience the advantages of an on-demand workforce, the gig economy will become more attractive, therefore more gig work opportunities will become available, helping is work towards a sustainable future in the gig economy.

Our mission is to revolutionise lives in Africa.

M4Jam is a web-based technology that connects businesses to the crowd through USSD, smartphone, tablet and computer. 

We use open-source technology, which helps reduce overhead costs as well as giving us the ability to be agile and capable of building prototypes and proof of values within days.

Our app is available on both Android and iOS. 

In 2020 just over 850 000 micro-jobs were completed. 

Our solution is successful as evident through the awards and nominations we have received:

1. Under the theme of Connect4Impact – Digital Solutions for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, M4Jam won the highest possible accolade from the WSA Global Congress by becoming a Global Champion for 2021. Out of more than 8 200 solutions from 184 countries, featuring technology that combines smart content with a social cause to solve global problems, M4Jam became the Smart Settlements & Urbanization Global Champion for addressing South Africa’s socio-economic development challenges, in addition to achieving the UN SDGs.
2.  MEA Business Awards, hosted by MEA Markets, named M4Jam Gig Technology Company of the Year 2021. This award was in recognition of our true determination and innovation.
3. M4Jam was named as a finalist in Africa Tech Week Emerging Technology Award. This award was aimed at companies that have developed practical applications. This means that new technologies that are currently developing or will be developed over the next five to ten years, and which will substantially alter the business and social environment.
4. Diversity in Tech Awards - Georgie Midgley, M4Jam CEO was named a Finalist for the Entrepreneur Award. She demonstrates exceptional innovation, growth and has the ability to navigate a dynamic business environment.
5. Out of 191 gig economy networking platforms in 43 countries surveyed, M4Jam ranked in the top 20 globally by Fairwork, for its policies on fair pay, fair working conditions and fair management.

Some case studies and research papers:

• Community Engagement - Video
• Lockdown Food Vouchers - Video
• Whitepaper - Future of The Gig Economy

The one risk we continue to be on top of is regarding the ethical aspect of what we do. Job creation is essential in the context of mass unemployment in South Africa. However, unemployment cannot be addressed by creating jobs based on high levels of exploitation. To ensure that the benefits of this growing source of employment are not undermined by exploitative working conditions, it is necessary to develop a regulatory framework based on the standards of decent work and adapted to the unique environment of platform work. We are closely working with Fairwork in order to give better protection to the rights of our platform workers in accordance with Constitutional principles

It currently serves just under a 1m users (jobbers)

We hope to grow our business clients in order to increase the number of tasks on our platform for as many people as possible. 

Last year we grew by 137% with regards to gig workers and are expecting to double that in the next year.

We have 5 main goals:

1. Build a tactical Jobber network:
   1. Development goals to create the best Jobber experience
   2. Build policies to regulate responsibility and consistency of fair working conditions
   3. Develop and grow the Jobber ecosystem
   4. Manage the demand and supply of Jobbers to jobs by investing in and maintaining key Jobbers and clients
2. Create the best stakeholder experience:
   1. Growth opportunities and financial rewards for employees
   2. Deliver on all commitments to our clients
   3. Increase participation from our shareholders
   4. Improve vendor relationships
3. Drive operational efficiencies:
   1. Invest time and effort into data assets such as warehousing and policies
   2. Grow operational and development capacity
   3. Build scalability
4. Invest in marketing initiatives for each M4Jam product offerings.
5. Increase the number Spazas (township shops) transacting through M4Jam's Kazi Last Metre solution:
   1. Source funding to grow the model
   2. Build an informal retailer endorsed technology
   3. Maintain and develop a robust data management strategy
   4. Continuous research and development into the general trade

The following objectives have been set up so we can measure our progress

1. Build a tactical Jobber network:
   1. Able to mobilise a crowd for a specific outcome
   2. National, provincial, town, ward location spread
2. Create the best stakeholder experience:
   1. M4Jam stakeholders become our best marketing tool - RAVING FANS 
3.  Drive operational efficiencies:
   1. Waste reduction
   2. Increased capacity
4. Invest in marketing initiatives for each M4Jam product offerings:
   1. Quality lead generation
   2. ROMI
5. Increase the number Spazas (township shops) transacting through M4Jam's Kazi Last Metre solution:

   
   

   1. Generating a revenue through 10k spazas transacting through KLM platform

43 permanent staff as well as a few outsourced companies.

We have a quite flat structure at M4Jam. Our management team consists of:

• CEO - Chief Executive Officer
• CFO – Chief Financial Officer
• CIO – Chief Implementation Officer
• CTO – Chief Technology Officer
• Training and Development Director
• Head of Sales
• Head of Marketing

Our development team all have degrees in computer science, engineering, computer information systems, technology, or related academic education. They all design, develop, implement and support our software solutions using a variety of languages, tools, methodologies, and technologies.

Languages and Frameworks: 

• CSS 
• Django
• Git 
• HTML 
• JavaScript 
• jQuery 
• Linux
• Python
• SQL
• Nginx
• uWSGI
• Ansible

With regards to our management team as mentioned above, two are women (CEO and Head of Marketing) and one is a person of colour (CTO and co-founder of M4Jam).

We use a number of methods to ensure our team is diverse and inclusive.

1. Build an inclusive culture - We recruit based on the person and not so much on their skill. We actually have a few of our Jobbers who are now full-time employees of M4Jam. Our culture is the driving force behind our success and as we are a small team doing the same amount of work as a company of 200 people, a "can-do" attitude is vital. We have a very low staff turnover as a result.  
2. Use our own technology - We use our platform as an employee engagement portal (M4Jam Brand Connect) for all news, communications, activities, thoughts, ideas, complaints etc. 
3. Education and training - M4Jam is passionate about growing its staff. Regardless of role or level, we make it possible for everyone to upskill themselves.
4. Diversity awareness - Diversity is a mindset that touches every aspect of M4Jam. We ensure that everyone embraces and contributes to our diversity and inclusive culture.
5. Ongoing learning - we are making strides in creating an inclusive environment, especially on the IT/development side but we are also continuously looking at what more we can do. 

We are applying to Solve for the following reasons:

• We share the same values as Solve - to address global challenges
• To become part of Solve's ecosystem
• Develop partnerships with Solve members. We need awareness and partners in order to benefit communities not only locally but also around the world. Our model works in Africa, which is one of the toughest economies to succeed in
• There is an African proverb that says “it takes a village to raise a child”. Like with our solution it takes a global network of people and organisations to solve worldwide challenges and create innovative ways of creating a sustainable impact on transformation.

Expansion of our client base means more micro-tasks can be made available, which means more money can be earned by those who need it the most.

MIT

Solve Members

Partners that are aligned to our socio-economic development goals