"We've extended that idea to 67 days. In the past four years the Diepsloot community has involved us in several SED projects and this has shown us that 67 days is all you need to trigger lasting positive behavioral change within communities that are currently excluded from the mainstream economy," said Emmeline Bester, Britehouse's group CSI manager.
"This movement comes off the back of the extremely successful pop-up digital hub launched in March this year in Diepsloot as a platform for launching, monitoring, and evaluating SED and enterprise development (ED) initiatives." Housed in a container equipped with smart technology and internet access, and provisioned with an online repository of skills development resources provided by the Seta-accredited Mentec Foundation, the digital hub can be replicated easily anywhere in South Africa and in the rest of the world.
The impact of the hub is deepened by the fact that it is itself an enterprise development initiative. It forms part of Britehouse's incubation of a black-owned and managed business headed up by Arthur Anderson. Britehouse provides Anderson with business mentorship as well as input in the form of solutions or SED spend from its own vendor network, including SAP and Microsoft.
Anderson facilitates the management of the hub and direct liaison with the community and also oversees any points of presence extended from the hub to other communities or organisations. "In effect, we are outsourcing our SED to an enterprise development beneficiary that will then take responsibility for youths, women, and community development as enabled by the hub," Bester said.
"He and his organisation will identify other small enterprises and match them to the enterprise and skills development obligations of large organisations. There are few things more powerful than a social entrepreneur empowering social enterprises."
The process is extremely scalable. All organisations can take advantage of the Got-Game facilities and approach, either by co-locating in a hub or setting up a hub of their own. Because the hub is replicable and operates as an outsource facility, it reduces the time, money, and effort needed to make a positive impact.
"In addition, each hub creates a multiplier effect, with communities benefitting from a continuously enriched and expanding SED focus. If corporates then also take the 67 Day approach, the multiplier effect becomes exponential."
The Britehouse Got-Game hub is designed to be a community resource, focused on creating inclusion in all aspects of the mainstream economy. It is used for IT training and professional teacher development. It's a safe place for students to study and a place to apply for jobs online via a digital job platform. Students can post their CVs via a Got Game portal, where businesses can find them easily. Having learned IT skills in the hub, people can then put them to work, capturing data, creating documents, and doing other online projects for organisations, globally.
Beyond the IT arena, the hub is used to train in the basics of business young women who start up early childhood education centres.
"Britehouse Got-Game is a place of many possibilities, dictated by communities' own requirements," said the Britehouse Group's CEO, Scott Gibson. "It is naturally and organically driven by synergies. If corporates couple it with a 67 Day approach, it can accelerate individual and community development at a rate that simply hasn't been possible before. And, because the hubs are digital, the effects of SED projects can be monitored and evaluated, enabling success to be measured and, therefore, replicated elsewhere."
