3,000 Jozi Digital Ambassadors are in the process of being contracted to activate 720,000 Jozi residents to utilise the City of Joburg’s free WiFi at over a 1000 hotspots (including clinics, libraries, community halls, schools, Rea Vaya stations.)
Jozi Digital Ambassadors are unemployed youth, contracted, developed & supported as micro-enterprises by Resolution Circle (on behalf of the City of Joburg) to provide training services to residents.
Empowering unemployed youth to provide services at over a 1,000 unsupervised workplaces is enabled by the utilisation of a cloud based development & monitoring portal called WorkPRO which acts as an online supervisor providing structured guidance & learning as well as verifying services 24/7. This forms an essential part of managing the 3,000 unemployed youth remotely and making sure that they deliver on their contracts. Jozi digital Ambassadors (JDA) collects data on each resident e.g. their unique device number, type of phone, residential area, gender, age group as well as ethnicity. This data is uploaded on the online platform. The online platform further integrates with the City’s Maru A Jozi portal in order to verify if the JDA is operating at his/her allocated hotspot, trains unique residents, trains least 10 min on at least 3 online services.
Data collection and storage complies with PoPi legislation. It further is saved on a SA server and then sterilised to non-personal data and saved to the Azure cloud environment to enable business intelligence reporting via Power BI on the overall progress of the programme.
Resolution Circle (UJ’s implementation partner) ensures that Jozi Digital Ambassadors are developed to comply with contract specifications by training them (in digital, business & life skills) capacitating them (through provision of equipment including tables which they paid off over their contract period, access cards, marketing material (kiosks, buttons & poster) as well as providing blended learning via the online system.
Digital Ambassadors are also monitored online & supported at their informal workplaces by UJ trained student mentors. The cloud based system verifies their work and generates invoices which are paid two-weekly in order to assist with cash flow of the micro-enterprises.
At the end of their contracts Jozi Digital Ambassadors are rewarded with a UJ & CoJ endorsed certificate which acknowledges that they have successfully delivered against a contract and are uploaded to a business directory to market their services for further opportunities.
The Jozi Digital Ambassadors bridge the digital divide as trained residents are enabled to change the way they engage with the world by accessing online services on the City’s Maru A Jozi portal such as registering for school & eHealth, banking online, applying for work, finding the map to an interview, and uploading work to clients.