The 10th Incubation Workshop in Southern Africa

 

For the last six years Ungana-Afrika has been going from country to country creating awareness of models and strategies that can be applied to provide ICT support services for under-served communities, with a particular focus on non-profit organisations and small to medium sized enterprises.

On the 27th and 28th of March 2010 Ungana-Afrika facilitated the 10th Incubation of ICT Programmes and Services Workshop since the beginning of its Southern African ICT Incubation programme in 2006, this time in Gaborone. This makes Botswana the 10th country in the Southern African region where the workshop has been held; the other countries being South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia, Lesotho, and Angola. In total 185 leaders from various organisations and institutions operating in different sectors attended the incubation workshops.

Over the years Ungana-Afrika has refocused the content of the workshop taking into consideration development trends in ICT, its organisational strategies and general societal needs. The aim of the recent series of workshops was to create awareness of social entrepreneurship as the best approach for addressing ICT needs of under-served communities in a sustainable and equitable way. Enterprise modelling (also called Business modelling) and business planning were emphasised as key to creating sustainable ICT initiatives.

Participants at the workshops included entrepreneurs and representatives of civil society organisations and government, who also engaged on ICT for Development issues relevant to their respective countries.