Finding your Angel! June 23, 2010

Guest post by: KingRoss

In preparation for substance abuse week (which is this week), RLabs has teamed up with Mxit to bring drug advice and support to the tip of Mxit subscribers fingers. 28,000 plus subscribers added the Angel Information Service .Yesterday the team had to be ready as they did not know how many people would come online seeking advice and support with their substance abuse problems. Yesterday in a 3 hour service session the following statistics were achieved with 8 counsellors:
Number of Conversations: 385
Number of Messages: 2867
Average Conversation per counsellor 44
The technology we are using to manage the conversations is JamiiX.

Thank you to the RLabs team for all the hard work and sacrifice in helping our youth.

Visiting Moms 3.0 by Veera Uusoksa June 19, 2010

This is a Guest post From The Penguin Trail – Cape to Cairo by Veera Uusoksa

It just so happened that I was in Cape Town for some open source related business (Freedom Toasters for Northern Cape) and decided to spend a weekend in town. I was dining at Kloof Street on Fr‎iday evening when Monique phones me asking if I would not like to visit RLabs the following day and join the Mom3.0 session. Well, of course I would. And what an amazing group of women it was!

RLabs is situated in Bridgetown under the shadows of the Athlone power station cooling towers “salt and pepper”. As I was turning off from N2, driving past a fancy looking mall through side streets and asking people for directions I was excited. I had heard about the work in the Reconstructed Living Lab, read about it and met Marlon Parker in quite a few events but never actually visited the centre. There is a few potential buildings on the street and it takes one U-turn to find the brown brick building with Youth Centre sign one can hardly read from a distance.

In front of the centre a legion of boys and young men greet me in the most polite way, giving directions and wanting to have a chat. I found it hard to believe that this is a community plagued with violence, drugs and gangsterism. Can’t quite put my finger on it but definitely something positive is cooking. First time in the community like this I felt a sense of pride. Or hope. Or future perhaps.

After the session there was no question about it. I want to be part of this! Yes, I will gladly spend a day in Athlone. There is no other place in the world I want to be right now but to watch community soccer and hear the old men shouting at the referee (some things don’t change no matter where in the world you are). Sun is shining, mountains surround the field and people are out.

And the moms? Mom3.0 Cafe Session is a social media gettogether for women. Twitter, blogging, Facebook and Gmail is shared every second Saturday by Monique Theron and Rene Parker. The class will last almost a year and after that ladies will be social media fundis. Monique herself is a graduate of the reconstructed class 2008 and blogging at She’s the Geek. At this session we concentrated on Twitter. Some where used to it, others signing up for the first time. Vibe at the session was fantastic to say the least. I had forgotten the special magic in all women technology groups. You can meet The Moms and feel the vibe on Twitter.

RLabs is “reconstructing communities through innovation”. Just check out their amazing projects and results. I surely was humbled and awed. It is rare one meets so many genuinly good people that inspire you to work better, smarter and get involved. I believe we found a perfect venue to launch our trail in January.

Sharing first pictures of Apple’s new iPhone 4 June 18, 2010

The first pictures of apple’s new i phone 4

View more presentations from Monique Ross.

Angel on MXit supports over 23,000 (via RLabs) June 17, 2010

Guest post by RLabs.

Another exciting project that RLabs have been involved in has been the Angel on MXit project where we offer people support and advice in the areas of substance abuse, abuse, depression, debt counselling,stress and coping via their mobile phones. This partnership with MXit Lifestyle will allow us to scale our services and also provide much needed access to all MXit users. The Angel project allows MXit users to “find their Angel” where they can get help for the social issue they are dealing with.

Over the next few weeks we will increase the capacity of our mobile counselling support centre and grow it to support thousands of MXit users across South Africa. Since starting our new campaign yesterday we’ve already attracted more than 23,000 users to the service.

RLabs Director Doing Twitter June 9, 2010

Guest Post by: Kingross

This past weekend in the RLabs space we had social media training for our moms called Mom3.0. This session was facilitated by RLabs director Rene Parker (Madam Geek)and Monique Theron (She’s the Geek). The session was a follow up on twitter and telling the ladies about the twitter applications that is available (hootsuite, tweetdeck).

She's the Geek and MadamGeek

We also had a special guest with us the Veera Uusoksa the CEO of  The Penguin Trail project. The Penguin Trail is an initiative taken up by two ladies journeying from Cape – Cairo. While on this journey they are empowering communities using open source software. The Penguin Trail Cape To Cairo will start 2011.

Introducing JamiiX: From the Cape Flats with Love June 3, 2010

Guest post by Marlon Parker

Yesterday was an exciting day as we celebrated the announcement (Thanks to Memeburn)of what we’ve been doing over the past three years. The public announcement of JamiiX (Meaning “Social Exchange”) as a new Web 2.0 product that has been developed on the Cape Flats in Silicon Cape would prove to be more than just an average aggregator for Social Networks and Instant Messengers but will come with a little dash of colourfulness that will certainly change communication channels using Web 2.0.

JamiiX is a Web based tool providing organizations/ businesses/ government/ individuals to manage multiple conversations from different Social Media, Text Messaging and various Instant Messaging platforms. Some benefits using JamiiX are:

1.Lower Cost to User
2.Reporting mechanisms
3.Communication is easy as the users use mediums that they are comfortable with
4.Manage multiple conversations at a time.
5.Reach audience on both PC and mobile devices
6.Counselors or Advisors are able to provide support via JamiiX remotely using an internet connection.
7.Easy setup and low cost to operate.

MoVigo Technologies (Pty) Ltd. have taken the task of commercialising possible the first Cape Flats Community-Driven Innovation from the ground to a global product. Already with business partners and offices in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Finland along with its strategic partners Reconstructed Living Lab (RLabs),MXit Lifestyle and ISLabs, JamiiX could well be a technology startup fairytale encouraging open collaboration with communities in developing innovative solutions. MoVigo Technologies has already acquired some seed funding (R1.4 million) from SAFIPA (SOUTH AFRICA – FINLAND KNOWLEDGE PARTNERSHIP ON ICT PROGRAMME) with the goal of establishing JamiiX as an international brand.

Watch this space as we will be sharing more about JamiiX and keep you updated on the progress of the official launch next week 8 June 2010. If you would like to join the JamiiX team at the launch you can register on the website and send a request message. You can also follow JamiiX on twitter or join the Facebook page.

See more posts by:
Kingross
Memeburn
Brentsjourney
Clintonliederman
JamiiX
Marlonparker