Tag: Business

Financial Literacy Hackathon winning teams

12, 13, 19, 20 July 2023

Over the last 5 years, Belle and Co. has been delivering unique and customised innovation workshops for Lifechoice’s Coding Academy students. Twice a year, these important sessions open up the creative potential of young learners who can practically apply their coding skills to solve a problem in their community.

Financial Literacy levels in South Africa

This year, the workshops focused on an important problem prevalent in South Africa today – lack of financial literacy skills (see also our previous hackathon here). According to a 2021 survey conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the level of financial literacy in South Africa is quite low, with only 42% of the adult population being financially literate. Financial literacy is the ability to understand and know how to manage personal finances effectively.

The Hackathon

Taking place over a 2-week period, each student group had to come up with tech-based solutions to topics such as budgeting, savings, investing, credit score and more. Supported by Belle and Co facilitator, Zikhona Madubela, each group was encouraged to use design thinking skills to delve into the problem and come up with “never seen before” solutions. To support them further, the participants were also taken on a journey to explore the fascinating intersection of “Money and Psychology” with an enlightening talk by the guest speaker and financial guru, Olivia Teek.

Image: Zikhona and Olivia.

The participants were not only inspired but also motivated to take control of their financial journeys. A highlight of the hackathon was witnessing the brilliant tech-based solutions that the dynamic participants developed during the intense brainstorming and coding sessions. A total of 10 innovative Financial Literacy “tech-based solutions” were produced, each addressing different aspects of financial education and empowerment.

🏆 The Winning Solutions 🏆

🥇 Group 1: Dollar Sense 📊

The talented minds behind Dollar Sense designed an ingenious budgeting tool that empowers individuals to manage their finances effectively. This solution provides a user-friendly interface and insightful features, ensuring that users can make smart financial decisions and achieve their financial goals with confidence. 🥇

Group 2: Invest Inn 💼

Invest Inn wowed the judges with their investment educational website, providing a comprehensive platform for novices to seasoned investors to enhance their knowledge about the world of investing. With easy-to-understand resources, interactive modules, and expert insights, Invest Inn promises to be a game-changer in nurturing a generation of savvy investors.

Our heartfelt congratulations go out to the winning teams, Dollar Sense and Invest Inn, for their exceptional efforts and well-deserved victories. However, every participant contributed significantly to the success of this hackathon by showcasing their passion for financial literacy and their determination to create meaningful solutions.

A special shoutout to Olivia Teek for sharing her invaluable wisdom on the psychology behind money management, which undoubtedly inspired all the participants to think differently about their financial choices.

Lastly, we extend our gratitude to Life Choices Coding Academy for providing the perfect platform to nurture young talents and foster a culture of innovation and learning. 🙏 We are truly proud of everyone who participated and supported this remarkable event. Together, we are shaping a financially literate future, one brilliant idea at a time. Let’s continue to champion financial literacy and empower individuals to secure their financial well-being.

FinancialLiteracy #EmpoweringYouth #HackathonSuccess #FinancialEducation #MoneyMatters #Investing #Savings #Budgeting #CreditScore #DebtFreeFuture

Ground Up: Local workshop on SE indicators

14 April

As part of the EU Erasmus Plus Programme called “Ground Up: Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Resilient Cities”, Belle and Co. designed and delivered a 1 hour local workshop for Social Enterprises in South Africa. The response was overwhelming with 50 RSVPs streaming in, curious to know more about the project,

The project outcome: A set of indicators to measure the health of the Social Enterprise Ecosystem.
Number of partners countries involved: 11 Partners (North Macedonia, Costa Rica, South Africa, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Poland, Denmark, Ecuador, Serbia and Peru)
Number of months: 18 month project (Jan 2022 – until July 2023)

A project of this nature is inherently tricky, as it is trying to capture a set of mainly quantitative indicators to measure how well supported the Social Enterprise Ecosystem is in a given local (city, region, nation).

The 4 pillars the project focused on include:

  • Human Capital
  • Funding and Finance
  • Support Systems
  • Quality of Life

The local workshop, held on the 14 April 2023, was to showcase the Social Enterprise Ecosystem Assessment Tool that the SA team had developed so far and the data sources they had managed to find. It was also an opportunity for the ecosystem themselves to validate or dispute the tool and its sources.

WORKSHOP VIDEO

If you missed this session, you can view the whole workshop video here:

Lifechoices: Financial Literacy Hackathon

18, 19, 25, 26 January 2023

Introduction

For the fourth year in a row, Belle and Co was asked to design and deliver a design-thinking workshop for Lifechoice’s Coding Academy students. This time, the ask was to design a competitive Hackathon-style training, focused on a specific theme, identified by the Academy as essential for learners: Financial Literacy.

What is a hackathon?

The word hackathon is a portmanteau of the words “hacker”, which means “clever programmer”, and “marathon”, an event marked by endurance. The concept of the hackathon, also called a hack day or hack fest, was born out of the open source (tech) community who would come together for about 24 hours to develop new software and applications. Nowadays it is used as a design-thinking methodology for all sorts of communities not only in tech.

Why does creativity thrive under constraints? 

A  study on creativity and constraint demonstrates that surprisingly when options are limited, people generate more, rather than less, varied solutions. When faced with scarcity, research shows that people must give themselves the freedom to use resources in less conventional ways. (Forbes.com)

Thus, the hackathon concept is a great way to simulate a time-constrained environment driven by either competition or collaboration to creatively solve problems through innovative or lateral thinking.

Lifechoices Hackathon method

For Lifechoices, we have chosen the competition-based hackathon, whereby teams are encouraged to come up with viable tech-based solutions to an aspect of the problem of Financial Literacy, using their coding knowledge, additional research and their inherent group ingenuity. The winning team receives a prize and recognition of some sort in front of an audience.

Learning objectives are to:

  • Stimulate creativity, innovation and solution-based thinking;
  • Learn how to work as a team and come up with tech-based products or services;
  • Understand more deeply certain aspects of Financial Literacy;
  • Embrace the VUCA (Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world by enhancing capacities for creative problem-solving.
  • Practise building a tech-based solution and pitching in front of an audience.

A hackathon can be conducted in a variety of ways, using a number of activities or design-thinking methods including brainstorming, world cafe, bar camp, pitches.

All the teams were excellent, designing prototypes (some on paper, others coded and already working MVPs) focusing on the following Financial Literacy topics: Budget, Debt, Credit Score, and Savings.

VIDEO: Winning Team, receiving their prize.

Creative Enterprise E-Learning

December 2021

In January 2021, the British Council, appointed Belle and Co. and its supplier consortium (Made Culture, Nigeria and Heva Fund, Kenya), supported by UK partner University of Arts London, to expand its digital programme delivery and to this end, commissioned a suite of e-learning courses, to support young people in the development of their knowledge in creative entrepreneurship.

Over the next 4 months, Belle and Co. and its consortium, were in charge of developing:

  • Module 1: Launching your Creative Enterprise
  • Module 2: Growing your Creative Enterprise

A further Module 3 on Impact Entrepreneurship and Module 4 on Creative Economy Policy, were designed by another service provider.

Module 1: Launching your Creative Enterprise

This entry-level module consists of 5 courses comprising of a total of 50-60 lessons.
Each course should take the learner 2,5 hours to complete. Which means, Module 1 should take around 12 hours to complete.

Module 2: Growing your Creative Enterprise

This intermediate level module consists of 7 courses comprising a total of around 70-80 lessons.
Each course should take the learner 2,5 hours to complete. Which means, Module 2 should take around 17 hours to complete.

A mixed media approach was used including video case studies, interviews, PDFs, PPTs, Worksheets, and Quizzes.

Click through the carousel to see what the courses look like online:

Each Course starts with a welcome video by the Course facilitator. In this case, Malaika Toyo (Made Culture), is introducing Module 1: Course 3 on Marketing and Branding.

A variety of Video Case Studies were produced from across the continent. Pictured here is an entrepreneur from Egypt, and an Entrepreneur from Rwanda.

Some Video case studies take the form of an interview. Pictured here is an Entrepreneur from South Africa being interviewed by one of our facilitators.

Should you be interested in signing up, visit: https://communitytraining.britishcouncil.org and sign up for free!

To help you decide, here are the course summaries (cheat sheets) of each course below:

COURSE SUMMARIES OF MODULE 1: Launching Your Creative Enterprise

Basic-Crs-1-Summary-African-Creative-EconomyDownload
Basic-Crs-2-Summary-Bringing-Your-Idea-to-LifeDownload
Basic-Crs-3-Summary-Finding-the-Right-PeopleDownload
Basic-Crs-4-Summary-Building-Your-BusinessDownload
Basic-Crs-5-Summary-Branding-and-MarketingDownload

COURSE SUMMARIES OF MODULE 2: Growing Your Creative Enterprise

Intermediate-Crs-1-Summary-Entrepreneurship-JourneyDownload
Intermediate-Crs-2-Summary-Your-Growth-JourneyDownload
Intermediate-Crs-3-Summary-Protecting-My-BusinessDownload
Intermediate-Crs-4-Summary-Finance-for-CreativeDownload
Intermediate-Crs-5-Leading-Self-and-Teams-Summary-1Download
Intermediate-Crs-6-Raising-Capital-for-BusinessDownload
Intermediate-Crs7-Summary-Promoting-and-PitchingDownload

East African Creative Music Campus

Tanzania, 17 – 27 February 2020

The East African Creative Music Campus, is a programme offered by the Global Music Academy, and co-funded by EU Erasmus+ and Goethe Institut. There are 10 countries participating from 10 academies (includes Music Crossroads Academies). Countries covered include: Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique.

Previously held in Ethiopia in 2018, this year saw the campus travel to Tanzania, and hosted by local organisation Action Music Academy.

Belle and Co’s director, Belisa Rodrigues, together with Faisal Kiwewa, CEO of Bayimba, an organisation based in Uganda, were co-facilitators for the Business Development Workshop held over 8 days during the campus. The main outcome of the training was for each Music Academy to draw up a fully fledged business plan and cashflow projection for the next 2-3 years.

The intensive training covered topics such as:

  • Developing your Vision, Mission and defining your values
  • What is your unique Value Proposition
  • Who are your customers and what are their needs
  • Market research, market analysis and knowing your competition- where do you position yourself in the market?
  • Risk Analysis and risk mitigation strategies
  • Marketing Mix and Strategic direction, objectives and implementation plans to reach your objectives
  • Financial projections, costing and revenue streams

The training also covered topics such as grant writing and fundraising, advocacy and pitching.