Praekelt Foundation is Africa's leading developer of mobile solutions to improve people's lives.
www.praekeltfoundation.org
Praekelt Foundation is Africa's leading developer of mobile solutions to improve people's lives.
www.praekeltfoundation.org
Praekelt Foundation has been named the first South African winner of the Social Impact category of the 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards for Innovation, Creativity and Leadership.
At a ceremony in Los Angeles last night on November 17th, the Johannesburg-based foundation was honoured with the Global Gold Award for its YoungAfricaLive project.
“We’re really thrilled at the recognition given to YoungAfricaLive by this award,” said Praekelt Foundation’s Creative Director, Jonathan MacKay who was in LA to accept the award.
“We faced some intense competition from some really strong international projects doing great work,” added MacKay.
“But the fact that YoungAfricaLive is recognised as having the most potent social impact is a real boost to the project, a credit to our partners and, really, an accolade that deserves to be shared with the whole YoungAfricaLive community whose passionate participation makes it the success that it is.”
YoungAfricaLive was nominated for the Social Impact category alongside Giorgio Armani and R/GA’s Aqua di Gio Armani Drops for Life App, Waterfall Mobile’s Waiting for ‘Superman’ Social Action Campaign and Busday and TELiBrahma’s Busday gets buzzier project.
Finalists in the 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards for Innovation, Creativity and Leadership represent the best-of-the-best in mobile marketing from across the globe.
“The over 25% increase in submissions from all over the world is indicative of how mobile marketing is being embraced by major brand marketers everywhere as integral to their marketing mix, ” said Greg Stuart, Global CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association.
Hosted on Vodafone Live and available free to Vodacom users in South Africa, YoungAfricaLive is a community that shares and discusses critical issues facing Africa’s youth, including love, sex, relationships and HIV/AIDS. It celebrates its second birthday on December 1st this year and counts over a six hundred thousand active users as part of its rapidly growing community.
In October, a new addition to the YoungAfricaLive platform came in the form of Africa’s first mobile career opportunities social network, Ummeli.
Since its launch less than a month ago, Ummeli has attracted over 20,000 active users, all aiming to take advantage of a supportive community of young jobseekers that can offer advice, suggestions, ideas exchange, connections and information on jobs, bursaries and grants.
Winning the Global Gold in the Social Impact category of the 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards for Innovation, Creativity and Leadership follows on the heels of another recent Praekelt Foundation accolade.
On October 26th, the Praekelt Foundation’s appointment reminder system for people on chronic medication, TxtAlert, was named the first winner of the Tech4Africa Innovation Award, created to encourage innovation in solving uniquely African problems whilst also encouraging global thinking.
YoungAfricaLive, Ummeli, TxtAlert and Project Masiluleke are all projects that embody Praekelt Foundation’s mission of building open source, scalable mobile technologies and solutions to improve the health and well-being of people living in poverty. Already, with the support of funders like Omidyar Network, programmes that have emerged out of Praekelt Foundation and its partners have reached over 50 million people across 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
