Tag: ecosystem

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:

The Future is Co-Created

The title of this blog “The Future is Co-Created” is a tag line from an amazing client that Belle and Co. is privileged to be working with, The Innovation for Policy Foundation. Haven’t heard about them yet? Let me introduce you …

The Innovation for Policy Foundation (i4Policy) is a pan-African non-governmental organization that brings citizens, communities and governments together to co-create the future! They do this by:

  • Re-imagining governance
  • Designing participation
  • Teaching Transformation

Re-imagining Governance

From co-initiating and coordinating the Global Assembly, to launching a viral crowdsourcing campaign during the covid-19 pandemic that reached more than 200m people, i4Policy works to amplify people power to address the greatest challenges and opportunities of our generation.

Designing participation

We design and host open and effective public engagement processes: from global declarations to national legislation, from one-off consultations to multi-year co-decision processes, and across the policy cycle from agenda setting through to collective sense-making.

Teaching Transformation

We develop open source tools, research, participation methodologies, and governance ontologies to support the transformation of our economies and societies. We’ve trained and equipped hundreds of government officials and community leaders in more than 80 countries to lead this transformation.

Read more about their work here: https://i4policy.org

In February 2022, Belle and co. was approached to join the i4Policy team as their Pedagogical expert. A major project they were developing, revolved around designing resources, tools and learning material for policy-makers in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem in Africa.

This work has become increasingly important as more and more African countries are adopting a new forward-looking Start-Up law-making process to support high growth entrepreneurs, many of them in the tech-based ecosystem.

I4Policy Foundation has assisted many governments to pursue more participatory policy processes (see below ADDIS process and the Senegal Start Up Case Study as an example of activities supported). The idea is to be as inclusive as possible when co-designing meaningful policies with the people whose lives will be impacted.

In my next few blogs, you will start to read about the policy-related projects that Belle and co. will be helping to develop over the year/s to come. See related Tags: Policy, i4Policy to find those blog posts.

Activating Ecosystem Change!

Belle and Co. was invited as guest speaker and facilitator to open the #SwitchSeminar in Johannesburg over the weekend of the 13th October as part of the Switch Social Entrepreneurship Programme (SSEP). The seventy (70) participants included both current as well as alumni “Switchers” from all over South Africa. The seminar took place at Workshop 17 in Maboneng district, Johannesburg over two days.

Belisa Rodrigues, Director of Belle and Co., gets ready to present at #SwitchSeminar.

The #SwitchSeminar topic “Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in South Africa”, was also the topic of Belle and Co.’s 2-part session. The first session was an interactive presentation looking at what makes up an ecosystem including elements such as funding and finance, infrastructure, policy, regulation, networking, incubators, training, media, academic, consultants. And then it was time for the switchers to build their own ecosystems using creative means such as the Solar System or the the Human Body.

In groups, switchers had to visualise their own ecosystems, the stakeholders, gaps and how they fit into the puzzle. At the end of the seminar, during reflection time, one Switcher said that this exercise inspired and made him rethink his entire business model and internal ecosystem.

(SSEP is run by Activate Change Drivers and is part of a larger 11-month course for carefully-selected aspiring social entrepreneurs.The SSE programme helps participants nurture the development of strong social businesses, helping them to proceed from an idea to business incubation or the start-up of their initiative. See more here.)