Rapelang Rabana is the founder and chair of Rekindle Learning, an edutech company that explores the role of learning pedagogies that improve learning efficiency and reduce time to competency, ensuring higher workforce productivity and enabling young people to be more employable. She is also a board member of Imagine Worldwide which seeks to demonstrate that children, with personalized technology in their hands, can become literate and numerate with little to no adult instruction.
How did you conceive the idea of Rekindle Learning and what informs your vision for the business?
The first time I started thinking about learning tools that could adapt to how we learn and support our learning until we demonstrate mastery, was in high school at about 15 years of age. Back then it was more of a frustration with the process of education and the inefficiencies that plague it and until a few years ago I didn’t know that it would actually become a business.
Can you also share your thoughts on the initiatives you’re involved with at Imagine Worldwide?
Imagine Worldwide has undertaken the ambitious goals of proving the efficacy and impact of autonomous learning - the role that smart applications can play in enabling young children to become literate and numerate. While such technologies have been in use for some time, the body of evidence on results, over time, is limited. And in order for such programs to gain traction, government support and more funding, the impact needs to be statistically proven. This is the mission of Imagine through its research in Malawi and other countries, with children in school, out of school and those that have never been to school.
Is the African continent ready for the exponential nature of the change that 4IR will bring and its impact? How should ICT leaders foster this change and ready their organisations and consumers for the fast-paced change presented by technologies such as AI, Blockchain, IoT, Robotics, and Cloud Computing?
Without addressing the skills challenge, the African continent will not be ready for exponential change. My view is that we need to focus on how we develop people to be adaptable and responsive to change. We need to evolve education and training to build the underlying functions and capabilities that enable adaptability.
Many jobs are threatened by redundancy in the next wave of industrialisation, however, existing jobs are expected to go through step-changes in the skill sets required to perform them. How should businesses or governments facilitate relevant skills and knowledge acquisition to unlock future opportunities for workers?
Organisations can be very proactive in mapping out the capabilities and competencies required in future. There are innovative startups that are designed specifically to partner with corporates to develop the pipeline of data scientists or software developers, but retraining existing staff and training up young people in the right skills. But this requires a long term outlook, and most companies only decide to act too late. The reality is that senior leadership is not adequately incentivised for the long term, and skills development and retraining is a long term play. Given the short term incentive structures of most companies, it remains significantly easier to simply retrench and automate when the time comes.
Government can better assist by moving much faster on the recognition and accreditation of new competencies. Right now, the SETA’s are not keeping up with the new skills demand. Yet, at the same time, companies’ skills development levies and tax rebates are tied up with the SETA process, so companies are not able to use these incentives towards addressing the new skills required
What can you tell us about your experience as WEF’s Young Global Leader and your role as a Member of WEF’s Global Future Council on Entrepreneurship?
What I came to appreciate about such opportunities is that there are billions of people in the world and to have been able to sit down with a group of like-minded people that have been so expertly filtered - and who are brilliant in everything they do - gave me the chance to jump into conversations that just hit right on target in terms of what I was thinking, where I needed input, where I needed support.
These are people who think as big as you want to think. The beauty of the experience was working with such high-level people and yet everyone’s guard is down and you are able to engage very intimately, very honestly. I also loved the fact that the agenda is open as it’s ultimately a self-managed community trying to pinpoint what we wanted to contribute to this agenda and what we as young leaders of the world can do and how we can use our individual brands, networks and voices to lobby and push for change. The platform the forum offers is also invaluable to me in trying to grow my business endeavours and effect the change I so desperately want to see on our continent.
What are some of the initiatives you’ve worked on or currently involved with?
As part of the Global Future Council on Entrepreneurship, we have just released a report where I focused my attention on more effective ways to deliver entrepreneurship education and training. I was also part of the Thabo Mbeki Foundation working group on education where we also produced a report on interventions required in education and shared our thoughts with Thabo Mbeki at a Heavy Chef.
Digitisation is more than just a technology trend; it’s a transformation of society and the economy as a whole. What immediate action can companies take to keep up with the pace of change? How can IT management create a sense of urgency to achieve responsiveness from the business?
Not all parts of an organisation will be ready for change and to drive innovation. It’s important to identify the pockets of potential innovation in a large organization, that have the right culture, progressive leaders, and the digital skills to run projects and give them room and resources to focus on priority projects, beyond business as usual. You can only start the journey with small focused teams that over time build momentum that spills over into the rest of the organization, but you need to give them room to germinate. The biggest mental block that dilutes the focus and sense of urgency to digitise, is that people still separate addressing the business challenges, from the digitization strategy, almost as if technology or innovation is a nice extra to have and there’s no sense of urgency. As if there is the ‘real business’ and the ‘technology stuff’. Until people across the organization actually see digitization as fundamental to solving their business challenges, there won’t be urgency to do so.
Africa has the largest concentration of young people in the world. How can the youth take a right-first approach to digital transformation and technology use and how should businesses in Africa define a digital transformation process that serves the interests or needs of this growing pool of consumers on the continent?
The kinds of innovations that are going to serve and address the needs of the consumers on this continent, will be the kind of ‘new market’ innovations that Clayton Christensen talks about in the book, Prosperity Paradox. These are innovations that are simple and affordable, target underserved markets, create new value chains, new jobs and bring in a whole new segment into the economy. Startups like SweepSouth, LiveStock Wealth and Yoco fall into this category.
These kinds of startups are digital natives, and the term ‘digital transformation’ is moot in that context. The reality is that established businesses mostly focus on sustaining and efficiency innovations that improve their current product and services, and reduce their operating costs. These kinds of innovations enable the established business to further optimise around their existing core business, which makes business sense and very rarely is a shift to a new market successful because the business is optimised for a different context. To serve the growing pool of consumers of the continent, we need to ensure that innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems are working, so new startups with new market innovations can thrive. Corporates can participate by investing in those but ensure they continue to operate independently so they optimise around the new market they are serving.
As a former Chief Digital Officer, what would be your advice to SMEs in Africa that are trying to inspire innovation within their organisations? Should there be someone who is defined and assigned to facilitating innovation or should it just be ingrained in the culture of the organisation?
A startup emerging today is mostly likely a digital native, and using web, cloud and digital technologies is built into their DNA. And if not, they are still small enough to effect change relatively quickly. I can’t imagine that a startup needs a Chief Digital Officer. This really applies to organisations that are digital immigrants and need to explicitly transform traditional aspects of their business over years, which is why digital focused roles like a CDO can make sense in a large corporation.
Why is innovation so important today and what are some of the keys to a successful innovation strategy?
Countries that have adopted technological innovations and changes, from the time of the printing press to 4G networks, experience significant economic growth. Technological innovation is key to accelerate development and it is ever more important today to ensure the next generation is not left behind.
The single most powerful thing we can do is deliver quality broadband internet to the majority of Africans. That will do more than any ministry of innovation, more than any innovation fund or any kind of innovation vehicle we can think of. Access to information and communication is the most empowering thing we can provide to support innovation. It opens the door for greater innovation in farming, education, health, financial services, and supporting entrepreneurs.
Innovation is most successful when it solves the problems of the ordinary man and in Africa, we have lots of problems. We need to put particular focus on the role of ‘new market innovations’ as described by Clayton Christensen, as these innovations service underserved markets, create new value chains and suppliers and drive inclusive economic growth.
Many jobs are threatened by redundancy in the next wave of industrialisation, however, existing jobs are expected to go through step-changes in the skill sets required to perform them. How should businesses or governments facilitate relevant skills and knowledge acquisition to unlock future opportunities for workers?
Organisations can be very proactive in mapping out the capabilities and competencies required in future. There are innovative startups that are designed specifically to partner with corporations to develop the pipeline of data scientists or software developers by retraining existing staff and training up young people in the right skills. But this requires a long term outlook, and most companies only decide to act too late. The reality is that senior leadership is not adequately incentivised for the long term, and skills development and retraining is a long term play. Given the short term incentive structures of most companies, it remains significantly easier to simply retrench and automate when the time comes.
Government can better assist but moving much faster on the recognition and accreditation of new competencies. Right now, the SETA’s are not keeping up with the new skills demand. Yet, at the same time, companies' skills development levies and tax rebates are tied up with the SETA process, so companies are not able to use these incentives towards addressing the new skill.
Originally published in Business Africa Online
https://businessafricaonline.com/rekindle-learning/
