Is eKasi a catalyst for Mzansi’s economic growth or a persistent missed opportunity?

By Janice Scheckter, CEO, KasiKonnect.online

Township economic transformation is cited in several notable publications as one of the key growth drivers for South Africa’s economic growth. In reality, however, it remains a lost opportunity. Whichever way one chooses to view the statistics, township economic growth strategies have not delivered meaningful results to key stakeholders and today 60% of South Africa’s unemployed live in townships. 

The entrepreneurial spirit in the township is powerful from the informal through to the formal. In part it may be driven by pure necessity. But one shouldn’t discount true entrepreneurial drive.

When we started looking at the challenges of township businesses, what became glaringly clear to us, was the lack of a digital connected ecosystem. Let’s take a simple example of a bunch of questions an emerging kasipreneur may have. Who can the kasipreneur ask?

Wikipedia, Google, Quora, etc., are not going to answer questions for a kasipreneur, relevant to the environment. This in part is the problem KasiKonnect.online has been designed to solve.

At the same time, the ESD and ED environments have an expectation that courses, and more courses will build successful kasipreneurs. Having been an entrepreneur for over 32 years, I can attest to the fact that there is not much time in the life of a start-up for courses.

We need to be meeting the kasipreneurs where they are. What does this mean? It means that from a registration and compliance perspective, policymakers need to sharpen their pencils and make this more accessible. Take a look at Rwanda. It means that, from a knowledge perspective, brands hold massive institutional knowledge that can be shared it in simple ways and hold far more value that courses. Here are some examples. Let your logistic expert share an early basic logistics plan. Ask your food safety team to drive food safety compliance.

This is the start of the connected digital ecosystem. As economic development agencies create a closed loop system that drives a circular economy. The kasipreneur doesn’t qualify for funding because they’re missing one year’s annual financial statements, but the AI algorithm drives the kasipreneurs to customer reviewed nearby accountants to support the process.

KasiKonnect has leveraged platform technology, the same technology that UBER used to disrupt the taxi industry and the same technology that Airbnb used to disrupt how people rented space, but we’re using it to connect the kasipreneur to better business literacy, to market access, to brands, to financial thinking that helps build credit histories, to digital transformation.

Every kasipreneur across the country has access to a free digital profile that acts like a highly functional website. Here kasipreneurs can connect to business literacy content, discussion forums specific to their sector or interest, they can build a mini cam tool where VIP customers receive special offers, they can add videos that showcase or train on their solutions, with much more to come as the ecosystem grows.

Township business is exciting. We’ve met developers of world-class technology, producers of health products that could lower maternal mortality, innovators in FinTech and many more.

But it’s time to think differently about how kasibusiness is supported. How do we ensure support that the kasipreneurs need while building robust hyperlocal economies, where communities start to thrive because livelihoods are sustainable, and jobs are created.

It’s about the connected ecosystem.

Janice Scheckter is a serial and social entrepreneur, who believes that platform technology and digital ecosystems can improve cross institutional collaboration and drive real impact. In addition to KasiKonnect.online she is the founder of www.a-better-africa.com – an African education ecosystem.