RLabs: Giving hope can be a business
A South African company, RLabs, shows how to make a business by giving people hope and by training them to use technology.
The company
- hosts technical training, entrepreneurship, and innovation programs that unite at-risk youth around their life experiences and passion for technology
- has since launching in South Africa in 2008 trained 200,000 individuals, incubated 3,500 businesses, and created 90,000 job opportunities in over 23 countries
- has shown how you can develop a new collective identity among impoverished youth and their communities
Reconstructed Living Labs (RLabs) has been analyzed in the book The Systems Work of Social Change by Cynthia Rayner and François Bonnici.
Through its hub in Cape Town and multiple franchises, RLabs has trained 200,000 individuals, incubated 3,500 businesses, and created 90,000 job opportunities worldwide. Yet, these numbers and programs can obscure the true nature of the work. The platforms are sophisticated yet they are an underappreciated way of developing a new collective identity about how impoverished youth and their communities envisio…
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