OLPC South Africa

Initiatives

Government Initiatives

ICT Initiatives

Schools Programs

Various schools development programs are currently active across South Africa.

Government Communications Programs

Government in conjunctions with some of the Telecoms providers like Telkom and Sentech has been working on improving the availability off internet connectivity to rural areas. Recently the government issued a law that requires of Internet Service Providers to provide schools with access to their services at half of their regular retail price.

Universal Services Agency

The Universal Service Agency, established in accordance with the Telecommunications Act 103 of 1996 as amended, was launched on 16 May 1997. At its inception the Agency primarily focused on the establishment of Telecenters, since then the Agency has grown to be involved in the following activities:

• Telecentres in Schools and Communities;
• provision of training in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services;
• has conducted research into and kept abreast of developments in the Republic and elsewhere on ICT, and made recommendations to the Minister and Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) on the provision of universal service and universal access in South Africa;
• subsidised telecommunications licensees to deploy telecommunications services in the under-serviced areas; and
• has promoted and stimulated awareness of the benefits of ITC services.

The vision of the Universal Service Agency is to be the leading organization in the strive to promote the goal of universal service and universal access to Information and Communications Technology in South Africa.

Government information services

GCIS was established in terms of Section 7 (Subsection 2 and 3) of the Public Service Act, 1994 PDF PDF as amended and GCIS was officially launched on 18 May 1998.

GCIS's vision is helping to meet the communication and information needs of government and the people, to ensure a better life for all.

GCIS's mission is to provide leadership in government communication and to ensure that the public is informed of government's implementation of its mandate.

Department of Service delivery

Vision: To be a responsive public service that delivers on the government's commitment to a better life for all people of South Africa.

Mission: To render professional support to the Minister in:

• leading the transformation process by developing appropriate policies and facilitating their implementation through strategic interventions and partnerships and
• maintaining a functioning public service.

The department of public service and administration sees to the development of administrative policies and a legislative framework to facilitate the transformation of the public service, in order to enhance service delivery.

The policy and legislative transformation process of recent years has now shifted gears to focus on implementation and the restructuring of the public service. In this regard, the DPSA leads several major initiatives.

Investment Initiatives

Treasury Development Co-operation Project

NATIONAL TREASURY VISION 2005: The Treasury aims to promote economic development, good governance, social progress and rising living standards through accountable, economic, efficient, equitable and sustainable management of public finances.

OVERALL IDC VISION: IDC strives to ensure the optimal utilisation of Official Development Assistance (ODA), in the context of South Africa’s broader international relations, and in support of South African, regional and African development priorities.

MISSION: To contribute to development in South Africa through deepening and extending ODA linkages between South Africa and donors and shaping the regional, African and global ODA policy agenda. This involves the following:

1. Deepening and extending ODA linkages between South Africa and donor countries;
2. Deepening and extending development linkages between African countries through ODA;
3. Shaping the regional and international development policy agenda; and
4. Monitoring and evaluating ODA programs.

IDC will achieve its mission through engaging in activities that provide high quality research, professional policy analysis, support, facilitation and advice, with excellent coordinating services.

VALUES: /In performing its work, IDC is driven by the following core values: Excellence, Integrity, Transparency and accountability, Customer orientation and Innovation.

--Jaco Vosloo 04:26, 4 April 2006 (EDT)

Private Sector Initiatives

Furyx

Due to the large number of initiatives in South Africa, Furyx strives to improve co-operation between the initiatives and making the distribution of the e-Learning products a reality. Furyx understands the challenges of distributing content in Africa where Internet connectivity is slow, unreliable, expensive and often non existent.

Furyx has developed distribution mechanisms where content can be simultaneously distributed using the internet and CD/DVD to augment the bandwidth of the internet connection.

• Content
  • Free content is obtained from existing Government initiatives, e-Learning institutions and business incubators.
• Content Management & Distribution Software
  • Content is cached on servers at Schools or Information Hubs. Students can schedule the automatic downloading of content not available at their hub. Content download priority is based on the number of requests received for a specific piece of content.
  • Currently Furyx systems use Microsoft .Net Framework & Web Services on the Server and HTML, Java or .Net on the client.
• Network Infrastructure
  • Information Hubs are connected together using National Telecoms or Satellite connectivity
  • Users are linked together using WiFi or WiMax to form a mesh with potentially a Hub as an internet bridging point
  • Pre-packaged business models like ISP, e-commerce and free business accounting packages encourage the community to use the infrastructure to improve its own welfare.
• User Devices
  • Furyx is currently searching and designing low cost user terminals. Current available options include:
    • Home entertainment PC:
      • Many households own a $100 battery powered television set. By merging television functionality (KnoppMyth) into the PC, the potential exists to make it affordable to households.
      • Devices will cost less than $300 in low volumes.
    • OLPC:
      • The OLPC initiative promises to eventually deliver laptop computers with pre configured mesh networking for around $100.

--Jaco Vosloo 04:26, 4 April 2006 (EDT)

Aleph Career Development

Aleph Career development provides you with a global community for the development of thriving careers. Expert knowledge packaged into effortless processes. Freely apply this knowledge and build a thriving career.

The Walk & Talk guide

Fundamental skills every career builder should know of. The Walk and Talk guide was developed from the fundamental knowledge that cause a business to succeed or a career to thrive. Career Builder has identified the knowledge the top half percent of successful individuals and businesses apply daily. The Walk and Talk guide consists of this knowledge and was compiled by career and business experts over a period of ten years.

How to write a resume

How to write a resume and the Continuous Resumes® process. Welcome to the how to write a resume page, a step by step process for building your resume as well as free resume samples to get you started. Career Builder has worked through in excess of four thousand resumes and cover letters over the past ten years. We have recruited more than five hundred people in our own companies as well as many other companies. There are many ways one can use a resume to build a career, other than landing a job.

Career building

Expand your career builder skills with the continuously changing job arena

• Career choices:
  • Career research and trends
  • Fear of the unknown
• Get more done!
  • Delegation
• Deadlines:
  • Setting ones own Compelling Events or Deadlines
• Meetings:
  • Facilitate and manage a meeting

Starting a small business

Building a career is similar to starting a small business. We have found that being a career builder one face very much the same risks as when starting a small business. Some of the most compelling risks when starting a small business include:

• The maturity of the concept used when starting a small business
• The strength of the team starting a small business
• Supply chain maturity and stability
• The network supporting one in starting a small business
• Certainty and clarity on the distribution channel
• Proven demand from an identified end client
• Are emotional hooks on the end client, suppliers and the support channel in place in place?
• Does the purposed concept fit with the end clients’ expectations?

We have built many businesses and hope to bring this knowledge to a global audience of career builders. We are currently in the process of packaging this knowledge to fit the needs of a career builder. This knowledge will also be of great value to small business owners.

Find a career coach

Find a career coach in your environment Find a career coach with the right relationships to develop your career and expand your career choices. Career Builder identified the essential career builder skills; use them to turn any career challenge into a career growth opportunity. When experiencing frustration or fear in your career use these emotions as opportunities to fast track your career growth; use them to pro-actively grow your career! Career Builder assisted and is still assisting thousands of people in their career growth. We worked with more than thirty entrepreneurs and coached them through the process of building successful running companies. We are still working with this group of entrepreneurs and their companies as well as a new group of young entrepreneurs. Any successful business takes seven years to build. Career Builder coaching processes are forged in the fire of building these successful businesses and the development of the people running them; these processes are being used in many other companies as well.

Make your own web site

Build your career, make your own web site. How to make your own web site, boost your career and turn your personal website into a web business. The basics every site builder or aspiring e-commerce buff must have an understanding of, to start a successful web business! We are in the process of creating an e-book on “How to make your own web site, the fundamentals of starting your own web business ” the gist of it will be available on this page once the book is published; the complete e-book will be available for free download.

Job search

What to do before you start a job search. Following is a list of job search sites we found to be the best [1]

--Jaco Vosloo 04:26, 4 April 2006 (EDT)