Qhakaza Mbali Mohare

What does your company do?

Digify Foundation, also known as Digify Africa, is dedicated to reducing youth unemployment by providing comprehensive digital skills training through various innovative programs. These include Digify Pro, an online digital entrepreneurship boot camp; Digify GP’s, a digital marketing programme for unemployed youth in rural or township areas; Digify Bytes, a nationwide digital literacy program; and the Lesedi and Kitso WhatsApp Learning Chatbots, offering accessible micro-lessons on mobile phones. These programs equip participants with practical digital skills necessary to take advantage of learning and earning opportunities within the digital economy. Central to our approach is the innovative use of technology to make education accessible at scale. The Lesedi and Kitso WhatsApp Learning Chatbots leverage the widespread use of WhatsApp to provide digital literacy and internet safety training with minimal data usage, making it accessible to remote and underserved populations. Our Digify Pro Online programme enables self-paced learning, while data analytics are employed to track progress and refine training and learner support methods. These technologies ensure scalability, accessibility, and engagement, allowing us to effectively address the digital skills gap and promote social and economic inclusion across South Africa.

What is your biggest success?

Impact is at the centre of what we do at Digify Africa, knowing that we have actively impacted the lives of young Africans is our proudest achievement. We have graduated over 700 digital marketers into the world of work, given 30 000 entrepreneurs digital skills to take their business to the next level, trained over 40 000 learners and educators in internet safety and made education more accessible to over 500 000 learners on our WhatsApp Learning Chabots. We have maintained strong relationships and a great reputation with reputable multinational funding organisations. We have also committed to building a truly safe and women-friendly working environment that prizes productivity as highly as staff wellbeing.

What has been your biggest hurdle?

The Digify Foundation is heavily dependent on grant income to fund our training programmes. While this ensures that programmes can be delivered at no cost to the beneficiaries, it is a difficult business model to sustain a growing business as it is subject to shifts in strategies in response to global financial instability. The high cost of data and a lack of access to devices present a barrier for young people to truly thrive in the digital economy. Lastly, South Africa’s slow economic growth and contracting job market has had a negative impact on our placement of young people in jobs. We have included a strong focus on entrepreneurship to better equip young people for the future of work, but entrepreneurship too comes with its risks and challenges for our graduates.