[MUSIC] The RLabs story really was birthed out of the old kind of journey on building solution for driving change in our communities, especially where our community was hurting. But immediately, we saw that it was more than just what was happening on the Cape Flats. There were other communities where people were lacking hope or where people were in need of hope, and that allowed us to see that we can actually create opportunities for communities to come up with new solutions in those communities themselves. So part of what we've done is we've built our model, like I've mentioned before, around developing people, creating environment for them to innovate, and then thirdly, to accelerate that into the market by thinking about it from an enterprise perspective. We then started having to kind of think about so how do we, one, sustain what we're doing? And when we started we were a non-profit. It actually started as just a little side project, but now we set up a non-profit. We had to formalize things. All of a sudden we had to start thinking about HR procedures and thinking about audited statements and all of these other things, but through all of those, we found that the actually grew with that. Up until today, we employ over 100 people. And 95% of the people that we employ are people that has come through our doors looking for help, seeking hope. And we then began to kind of look at other avenues in the community where we can actually think about how we can sustain the work that we do. So part of our sustainable model is one, we've got the donor partner model. We have partners internationally and locally that provide us work and support, and that takes about 50% of our income, comes through the donor model. The other 50% of our income actually comes through where we do a lot of work around consulting, prototyping the same process they have gone through with the solution for addressing the challenge of substance abuse and drug addiction in our communities. Using the same approach and actually our third bodies that pay us to come up with prototypes and products in addressing some of the challenges they are facing. One good example was one of the projects we did with our local department of social development. And they were really thinking about an alternative space where young people could go. What we then did as a team, we've in started kind of engaging with thousands of young people in the community through what are the kind of things that they need or what they would love to see in a creative space where they believe that they can actually be equipped and developed. And this thing kind of led us to the journey we started creating what we call a Youth Cafe. Which was co-funded by the government. And we then started finding other funding resources to actually create this new prototype of an alternative community space. And we went through exactly the same thing. Firstly, skilling up the community, the young people, around things such as designed thinking, thinking about how they can look at spaces differently. We then created the innovation lab where they were allowing them to actually physically build the space. So we actually built a Youth Cafe as a prototype, actually two prototypes. And then, thirdly, got them to think about how can we turn this community space that was now built into an actual venture. So now they're starting to explore, where they not only can drink gourmet coffee, but they're now providing digital services to small businesses in the local communities. If you think about the cafes as a bright colored space, it's got bright colored walls, there's graffiti, you find fresh coffee that's brewing in this space, there's a little digital area where the young people can actually access the Internet. But one thing that we did in the youth cafes was we didn't allow them to use real cash in the cafe. We've created an alternative currency. Again, an idea that emerged from the young people themselves. Because many of them were saying, we can't access this because we cannot afford it. So what we then did was we allowed them to think about how do you allow you to transact without actually having to really use cash? And what can you give in return and we then gave them an opportunity where they could actually do good work in the communities, and through this good work, they can then actually be rewarded with our alternative currency that they could spend in the cafe. So in the cafe they've got their mobile phones, where they've got the mobile wallets where they can actually go and buy things. And when their currency runs low, they can then go and attend workshops in the cafe. They can go for information sessions. So the cafe becomes this hub of activity that not only allows young people to find a place where they belong, but it's a place where they can act on opportunities. It's a place where they can get skills, and skills development. At the same time, it's allowed us to learn one big lesson. That even though we have a shortage of jobs in our society and in our country, there is no shortage of work. So this actually allowed these young people to focus on the work that needs to be done in the community. Maybe they can go and clean up the local neighborhood or they can go and volunteer at an orphanage or at an NGO. And these are the kind of the good deeds that they are now being rewarded for. And they can use this alternative currency and spend it in these cafes. So the crazy thought then came, what if we are actually able to do this in other parts of the continent or other parts of the world? And immediately what started happening we started getting people from other parts of Africa asking us, can we utilise the same model? Where the community looks at solving the social challenges from a grassroots level up. And some of the places that we started exploring was doing work in Namibia. We did some work in Botswana. But one of our big projects that we've embarked upon was actually in a rural town called Iringa, in Tanzania. Where we established an art lab, and this was in partnership with the Finnish Foreign Ministry. So in Tanzania where challenges were different, but the approaches were very similar. They were looking at things such as agriculture, and they started looking at those challenges from a completely different lens. The lens where they realised that not only are these problems and challenges in our communities, but there's an opportunity for us to turn these problems into social innovations or social ventures. And we had a number of interesting initiatives that started coming from our Tanzania hub and the beautiful one that we found recently was a group of young men and women that actually what they did was for them the big challenge was the environment. And they came up with a solution where they were trying to think about what can they do with plastic bottles that are being littered all across their rural town. And they started using the technology that they've learned, and they started looking at YouTube videos, and they found online a way of how people actually using plastic bottles to build swimming pools and water structures. And they started building water tanks from these kind of recycled plastic bottle. And they start a little business, and today they're employing a couple of people from the communities that are now building water tanks for NGO, schools, and church groups, across the little rural town without wasting. So when my community hurt, I hurt. And for us looking at the problem of seeing our society falling apart, the challenge of drug addiction, gang violence, young people that are unemployed, immediately we realise that we couldn't do the same solutions that everybody else was doing. We had to look at the problem from a viewpoint that we cannot afford to make the same mistakes, because somewhere along the line, the solution that was being implemented was broken. And we have to go on this journey of finding where it's broken so that we can fix it. You can't change society with a broken system. And we had to realise that the one thing we had were the people that were living in these communities, going through these challenges on a day to day basis. And the minute we allowed them to become the center of our innovation process to solve these challenges, it completely changed things for us. Immediately, we were able to look at the problem from a completely different point of view. Not an outward view looking inward, but actually going from the inward outward. And that became the key differentiator for us at RLabs. So in the end for us, one of the big lessons that we've learned is that it doesn't matter how small you start with your venture or your project that you're going to embark on. And the big thing is really starting with something that you know can create at least some value. We just started by one simple person wanting to help one person in our community to get over their challenges around drug addiction and gang violence. And where has it taken us? It's taken us on a journey where we have impacted millions of lives. [MUSIC]
