Babazeka blog

One of my favourite online publications, SA Good News, mentioned a South African who has recently won the title of Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Rael Lissoos started a company, Dabba, which provides the township of Orange Farm (south of Johannesburg) with cheap to no-cost phonecalls. Dabba aims to spread their work to other communities in our country and to bridge the digital gap between the rich and the poor.

Rael has apparently been working in the areas of technology and education for a while. He started with a system that lets schools connect their computers to one central hub which holds lots of educational content. The network gives schools access to huge amounts of information that wasn’t available to them before – without the costs of the internet. From here they started a wireless network, and then free phonecalls for the schools involved. This is obviously what led on to Dabba.

I think it’s so fantastic that poorer communities have a future in sight which will allow for easier communication and access to information. It doesn’t seem right that these are limited to a select few. Well done, Rael, for an amazing concept and for winning a Social Entrepreneurship award. Babazeka thinks you deserve it!

Written by: Sarah
Filed under: Social Upliftment, South Africa Love on July 24th, 2008