One small step for IkamvaYouth, one giant leap for Vision 2030!
A month ago IY was joined by three employees from SAP an international software solutions company. They were on a social sabbatical with IkamvaYouth and had accepted the mission of restructuring and revolutionising the Ikamvanite Zone. I can safely say mission accomplished!
It is hard to arrive in a strange country, be introduced to a team of people, dumped in an office, and be given a task with a vague objective and set of deliverables, in a context you don’t understand. Yet the SAP rose to the challenge! It is also hard for an organisation to welcome a team, determine what they are able to do and then direct them effectively to do this within a short time period. Yet IY rose to the challenge!
Marise Sfier, Marc Bernard, Zoe Mann, Yolana Xu, Zukile Keswa
This month has been a true reminder that collaboration can be a beautiful way to work. The SAP team brought with them their exceptional knowledge of software applications, technology, data analysis, design thinking, marketing, and web development. Without which the Zone redesign could not have been realised. However, without IkamvaYouth’s depth of contextual understanding the SAP team would not have been able to apply their expertise. Such an understanding is invaluable, but often taken for granted.
Within this short time they were able to conduct a design thinking workshop to determine the users and roles on the Zone, create a detailed website specification document, build a Drupal 7 back-ended prototype, create a comprehensive project plan going forward and put in place a go to market communication plan. Just a few bits and pieces!
Design Thinking Workshop
Although there is a lot of work still to be done. I am grateful for the SAP team for progressing IkamvaYouth further towards the realisation of the Zone. The vision of the site is to create an online resource hub and learning environment to inspire, enable and support individuals, organisations, learners, volunteers and IY staff to take the future into their own hands and make Vision 2030 a reality.
The new website will be launched at the beginning of next year – watch this space!
In the meantime if you are interested to find out more about the Zone or Vision 2030 please contact zoe@ikamvayouth.org
Lloyd Lungu