Iringa Living Lab Workshop

Iringa Living Lab organised a workshop on the 26th - 27th November in order to enhance community networks in Iringa region. The objectives were to create partnerships between the different stakeholders and to create a platform for further cooperation, as well as come up with new social innovations which will benefit the Iringa community. We invited stakeholders from the government, the community,  universities and different organisations.

The workshop was facilitated by TANZICT. Jukka Siltanen and Kristiina Lähde provided us with participatory, interactive and inspiring activities throughout the workshop.

The Regional Commissioner Dr. Christine Ishengoma opened our workshop officially. She stated that Iringa Living Lab is a very welcome initiative in Iringa region. She pointed out that one strength of the developed societies "is their ability to work together and create synergy". She also emphasized the role of knowledge. Iringa Living Lab is a step in the right direction, said Dr. Ishengoma. She thinks the concept of Iringa Living Lab is exciting, because Iringa Living Lab encourages different stakeholders to work and come up with innovations, initiatives and solutions together instead of competing against each others. Dr. Ishengoma assured us that Iringa Living Lab has both her moral support and her active participation.

After Regional Commissioner Dr. Ishengoma opened the workshop officially, the concept of a living lab was introduced to the participants. They also got to know what Iringa Living Lab has been occupied with so far. Then all the stakeholders made an organisation poster and we had "an organisational fair" where the participants had the chance to get familiar with all the participating organisations and stakeholders. This was also the first opportunity to identify shared roles, actions and future goals with other stakeholders and the first step for creating partnerships.

Next the participants were given a task to individually define a key problem or issue in the Iringa community. Group members shared these key issues and discussed them with other groups. At the end of the first day the participants voted for those issues that need to be tackled right away. Four of them were selected for further discussion:

1) How to create more new businesses and help small businesses grow?

2) How to help people to find, access and create job opportunities?

3) How to make science and technology more appealing in society?

4) How to transform Iringa into a green city?

These key issues served as the starting point for the second day. The participants decided which issue they wanted to focus on and four groups were formed. In groups the participants did brainstorming on how to solve the issue in Iringa community.

Each group came up with a number of ideas. The groups selected one of them and the next stage was to write an action plan: a very concrete plan about what the next steps would be during the next three months.

Group number 1 decided to work on the idea of entrepreneurship clubs in schools. The goal is to help children become innovative and creative in a unique way, be proactive, find their own strengths, and understand the possibility to create their own work. Eventually the group wants to include entrepreneurial education in the curriculum as a part of all school subjects.

The second group decided to organise a participatory workshop on how to create job opportunities in Iringa region. The workshop will provide the forum for the discussion, but also help different stakeholders to meet each others and find true commitment. 

The science group decided to create a science and technology club for primary and secondary schools in Iringa municipality in order to make science and technology appealing and relevant in everyday life. They are also planning to organise a science week for schools. 

The goal of the environmental group is to increase environmental awareness and transform Iringa into a green city. They want to educate people, establish a plant nursery, plant trees around the municipality, and form environmental youth clubs. Transforming Iringa into a green city will also make Iringa a beautiful and interesting tourist attraction and in that way increase tourism in the region.

The workshop serves as an excellent starting point for expanding Iringa Living Lab. The facilitators collected feedback from the workshop participants and in overall it was very positive and encouraging. The coordinators are looking forward to hearing more from the groups, but also from all the other stakeholders in Iringa. As Dr. Ishengoma pointed out: it is important that we do not work in isolation, but together.

The workshop shows that there is need and interest for this kind of a platform in Iringa. We were very pleased to hear the views, thoughts and ideas of the participants and see how committed they worked through the workshop. 

Surely everyone remembers the stories about the successful living labs in Africa that we heard about in the workshop. Iringa Living Lab can become one of them, but we need to make it happen together!

TOGETHER WE CAN DO IT!

During the past five weeks we have had three community trainings at Tumaini University. Furthermore, there's already the second training going on at Neema Crafts for deaf participants. All the participants have been very excited to learn basic social media skills. They have created Gmail-accounts, learnt how to use email, chatted on Gmail, created a blog of their own, and created a Facebook profile. All this in only five days! I think the fact that they have been able to learn so many totally new things in only five days shows that they are highly motivated and open-minded.

Many participants haven't even touched a computer before the training, and starting to work on the computers is not easy to all. Although everyone is excited, most of them are also very nervous at the beginning, which is only natural. It has been great to see the change in their self-confidence during the trainings. Many of them said they thought computers were only for academic people but now they realize computers and technology are for everyone. Not even all the professors at the university are as competent to use different social media platforms as they are now -and this is something we have been laughing at many times together!

The first trainings both at Tumaini and Neema Crafts were trainer trainings. We trained the participants to use the same social media applications they would be teaching to other people from the community, but we also had some inspiring group sessions on the trainer's role and “thinking out of the box” - thinking creatively. Right after their own training our new trainers met the challenge of organizing the next course. And they are doing extremely well! You could not believe they are the same people as on the first day of their own training. There are some natural pedagogues among them!

It has been great to see that some participants from the following courses have also been willing to share their knowledge and train new people in coming trainings. As we learnt from Brent Williams from Rlabs, one of the most crucial principles in a living lab is sharing, and I'm happy to confirm that our participants have adopted this principle.

During the first training at Neema Crafts we needed two translators since all the participants were deaf: one translator was translating from English into Swahili and the other from Swahili into sign language. It worked well and was a mind broadening experience. Now the participants of the first group are training the second group, and the significance of the trainers is huge: we don't need a sign language translator anymore. One of the trainers knows English, so if there are any problems, we discuss the matter by writing in English, and after that he explains it to the others in sign language.

It's amazing to see the excitement among the participants when they are exploring the new world opening to them. The meaning of virtual communication is even greater to the deaf participants: they can communicate on the web just like people who can hear. They can even use video calls to sign with their friends. Many of our participants -both the deaf and the hearing- have been particularly eager to learn how to blog. Some of them want to share their life stories, some of them want to improve their business by blogging. Like Yusuf Ssessanga said in his earlier post they have now the opportunity to expand their social networks and benefit from the globalization and technology.

Many of them are also looking forward to developing their entrepreneurial skills. They are extremely motivated to start or improve their own businesses, but they need help and advice to make the most of it. Iringa Living Lab's entrepreneurship group is working on this matter and will provide them with training as soon as possible.

I am more than happy to be part of Iringa Living Lab right from the beginning. I expect to see a lot of progress in our social innovation during the coming year!

Together we can do it!

ONE WEEK OF SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING TRANSFORMS PARTICIPANT’S BUSINESS!

Wilbert on a Computer

Wilbert is one of the beneficiaries of a one week social media training that has ended today at Tumaini University College Iringa, organized by the Iringa Living Lab. And what a week it has been for everybody but more so Wilbert who couldn’t hide his excitement.

His story goes as follows. A first born in a family of seventeen, Wilbert lost his father in 2010. As a result, he could not continue with studies after form four, because his mother didn’t have enough money to take him to high school. He is self-employed selling SIM Cards as a mobile agent for TIGO, a mobile telephone operator. TIGO is currently promoting internet services in the country and have tasked their mobile agents to convince as many customers as possible to use TIGO internet on their phones. The problem for Wilbert though has been his inability to use internet, let alone understand what internet is all about.

So, the social media training by Iringa Living Lab came as a big opportunity for him. After just one week, Wilbert has been introduced to basics of social media and gained confidence in the use of email, face book and blogging. 

Opportunity knocks once, so goes the saying! After realizing that social media is after all for everyone, Wilbert straight away went back to his business and confidently started persuading his customers to join TIGO internet.     This time they responded. In one week, he has managed to convince 48 (yes, forty eight) customers to join TIGO internet, thanks to Wilbert’s newly acquired social media skills and entrepreneurial abilities. And his efforts have not gone unrewarded. He has received his commission from TIGO for connecting so many customers in such a short time.

Wilbert’s story confirms what Iringa Living lab stands for; that new technology can be adopted by all human beings irrespective of social status and it can make a huge difference in their lives.

As Iringa Living Lab, we remain committed to produce many more Wilberts and through the efforts and creativity of every one of us, we believe we can make a difference in the lives of others, without waiting for government. It is possible!

OPPORTUNITY NEXT DOOR

Sometimes we think opportunities are so far from us. Not anymore for Iringa Living Lab entrepreneurship group. The entrepreneurship group was started by the pioneer members of the Iringa Living Lab  after realizing that there are many young people who would be productive but are unfortunately jobless or doing not-so productive work. So, the goal of the group is to help these young people around Iringa Municipality see the opportunities vicinity.

One of the amazing places this team recently visited is Neema Craft, a faith-based NGO in Iringa Municipality where people with disabilities have proved that disability is not inability. Although society had written off these people as “not so productive” they are now turning the “not-productive” raw materials into money. And what an inspiration they have become!

Our team visited them recently to see what they do. It was a great experience! Seeing beautiful paper products made from maize leaves, elephant dung, waste paper; turning broken glass into wonderful jewelry, amazing products from clay, all this done by people with physical disabilities!! What a challenge it has been to our able-bodied members of the entrepreneurship team.

Another visit was to the Small industries Organization (SIDO) that makes small (and even medium sized) machinery for making life easy for entrepreneurs. SIDO stands by the motto (though unwritten), "conceive it, we fabricate it". They have helped many entrepreneurs to breakthrough in the business world by fabricating machines for them . But it seems  there are more entrepreneurs who do not know about SIDO than those who know it. Yet SIDO is located just a few kilometers from Iringa town (precisely, hardly four kilometers from town centre), but not a single member of the entrepreneurship team had visited or even known in detail what SIDO does.

So again this was an opportunity to discover the opportunities next door. Because of the many opportunities at SIDO, another more formal trip is planned by the team. In the meantime though, some members are working on their business ideas. Thinking of what business to do? Opportunities could be waiting for you just next door; you only need to venture out. As our entrepreneurship team  can attest, to succeed we do not necessarily need big ideas, a little creativity, as demonstrated by Neema craft, with a mix of technology as SIDO has proved, could be the trick!

A JOURNEY OF 1000 MILES BEGINS WITH ONE STEP;

IRINGA LIVING LAB ENTREPRENEURSHIP GROUP TAKES FIRST STEP

Iringa Living Lab First Entrepreneurship Group, 3rd July 2012

A month ago, Kristiina of TANZICT met with potential members of the Iringa Living Lab to discuss possibilities of how they can be involved in solving problems/tensions in their community. They listed about 20 tensions and finally zeroed on four which they thought were most critical to handle. Among the key tensions was unemployment. So, one group, led by Ambrose Mwakikoti and Arnold Luhwago was tasked to come up with initiatives to deal with this problem, in whatever small way.

Members of the group were tasked to identify at least three people in their neighborhoods whom they thought needed entrepreneurship training. This they did and yesterday the first training in entrepreneurship took place. Being the first time, the group was introduced to what Iringa Living Lab is all about, emphasizing that human beings have a responsibility of making their communities better. God has given us the resources we need, hands, legs, brains, soils, friends, etc…so failure is just choice.

 A short documentary was shown of Nick Vujicic, who is limbless but has not been limited by his physical condition. It was emphasized that attitude is all that matters in life. As a way of hammering the point home, today we visited Neema Craft, a local NGO that supports disabled individuals in Iringa region to live a productive lifestyle. The visit to Neema Craft has also been very inspirational not only because people with physical defects are very productive but also the fact that they use what would be referred to as useless garbage (e.g. broken bottles, elephant dung, maize leaves, waste paper, etc) to produce high value products.

At the end, everyone was inspired; commitment has been made by every member of the group to work on something-those already in business to better them, those not yet doing productive work to start immediately. They will report back in 2 weeks, coming for another workshop, with new members, at least 2 by each group member. Those interested in working on simple business plans will see Yusuf individually.

Are you passionate about training people in simple entrepreneurship skills? Drop us a message and let’s see how we can work together.  

Breaking technological barriers-Social media excite rural Tanzania

What started as a far fetched dream is finally coming to reality as TANZICT and RLabs have partnered with Iringa Living Lab to initiate social innovations that can impact people's lives in a myriad of ways.

Iringa Living Lab is one of the pioneer living labs in Tanzania. Yesterday, the first community training took place on how to use social media  to expand their social networks and benefit from the   opportunities of globalization and technology.

There was much excitement as some participants touched the computer for the first time.   Indeed it was a Eureka moment for many who had always thought computers are for a select class of people. The training took place at Tumaini University, one of the key partners in the Iringa Living Lab.

Brent, a consultant from RLabs shared his story of how his life was transformed thanks to RLabs that opened doors of hope to people in his community who had lost direction. His story touched everyone in the room.

There  is now new energy.

What a difference Hope makes!