How D-Lab is equipping SA youth with ‘shining eyes’ to thrive in the job market

South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis leaves many young people struggling to secure jobs due to limited experience. D-Lab is tackling this challenge by immersing unemployed youth in a virtual business simulator, equipping them with essential digital and workplace skills. In an interview with Biznews, D-Lab co-founders Alison Jacobson and Ayanda Orrai revealed their 85% job placement rate. One of their candidates, who had spent 11 years unsuccessfully searching for work while trying to run his own business, now holds a senior position in the tech industry. D-Lab specifically seeks out participants with ‘shining eyes’ - those who display enthusiasm, potential, and a determination to reshape their futures.

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Edited transcript of the interview

Linda van Tilburg (00:00:00)

South Africa faces a severe youth unemployment crisis, with many struggling to enter the job market due to a lack of prior work experience. D-Lab is tackling this challenge by immersing unemployed youth in a virtual business simulator, equipping them with critical digital and workplace skills. Co-founders Alison Jacobson and Ayanda Orrai, the programme manager, join us in the studio. Hi, thanks so much for joining me.

Linda van Tilburg (00:42.316)

So, what sparked this idea?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (00:49.366)

We live in South Africa; it's number one. In our corporate life, in the business we run, Not D-Lab, which is a nonprofit, we were experiencing the skill shortage, the war on talent, the difficulty of having it, and, on the other hand, our unemployment rate.

Our deduction is that education, broadly speaking, in South Africa, and certainly mostly everywhere else in the world, too, lacks product market fit. So traditional education, especially now, lacks product market fit. In other words, it is not producing what the market wants. And that's becoming even more so with the rise of new technologies, AI, and all kinds of associated issues.

So, we looked at this and said, understand from a corporate point of view, from a business point of view, what we think it takes. Can we reverse engineer that into a curriculum and a programme that would allow people in this country who otherwise may not have an opportunity? And we're talking about the vast numbers of unemployed youth across the country, the townships, etc. And we wanted to prove a point, which is that the future is for everybody and that nobody should get left behind. We wanted to demonstrate that with proper access and support, people could transform their lives and situations and become eligible to be in the economy. I thought we should take a shot at it at least because the problem is so significant, and we want it to be at least somewhat part of the solution.

Linda van Tilburg (02:47.218):

Ayanda, do you want to add to that?

Ayanda Orrai (02:50.375): 

Yes, so I think the one thing that's always stood out to us when we thought about creating D-Lab was wanting to support the students as much as we can because there are a lot of programmes where you go through the programme. Still, when you go into the world of work, you're alone and unsure of what to do. You have all of these questions, so we've added that extra layer to our programme where we support the person and focus on personal development and growing the human being.

Linda van Tilburg (03:26.474)

I've outlined a little bit about the business in the beginning, but can you elaborate on exactly what you are offering these students to fill this gap that you've just identified?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (03:38.062)

We designed a fully online programme. It's full-time, and it runs for nine months. We work with different partner centres, STEM centres, and community centres across the country, and they provide space, infrastructure, and support for our students. We provide the programme, and it's fully remote. It's all online. When we think about the nature of the world of work and the demands, we decided to build a kind of three-part curriculum. And the first part is about digital literacy. Not just now, can you use your computer and the internet to get good work done? Are you free to learn in those spaces? Are you able to understand?

And, of course, today, the hugest component is AI and getting everybody to use it to the best effect they possibly can. And what we're seeing is remarkable. So that's the digital literacy side. Then, we have another component around design thinking: a problem-solving framework and methodology. So, we're trying to help them to learn how to solve complex problems. But the third part is we want them to be able to solve complex problems well with others because that's how they are solved today. So, the third part of our curriculum is about personal development and character. And it's not just a little sort of throwaway to time management or writing email effectively. It's a really deep programme around personal discovery and essentially getting yourself to the point where you think you have a seat at the table. Or that you deserve one. And that's the crux of the matter. We deliver all of this using online project-based coaching. So, it's not theoretical. Building and solving business challenges. They're building apps and prototyping. They are doing discovery work in the townships and their communities from a design thinking and market research point of view. So a lot is going on; essentially, we've tried to emulate what it would be like if they were in business.

Linda van Tilburg (06:05.481)

How's it been working? If I'm a student, do I already have to go through matric, and how do I access it?

Ayanda Orrai (06:16.967)

Yes, we use several recruitment methods, but currently, we are working with partner centres. So, we would have outreach programmes in the areas and try to reach out to as many possible applicants as we could. In terms of criteria, we do require that someone has a metric. That's only because placement for most organizations does require that, but we believe that we can get some onto the level where they can work even without a matric certificate. So, we work with these students, we take them through our recruitment process where we look at what they're capable of doing, the potential they have to thrive in the programme, and then they come into the programme and complete the nine-month programme with us.

Linda van Tilburg (07:14.522)

How many students have been through your programme?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (07:18.114)

The number is in the hundreds. We run different types of programmes. Some of them are also called intensives. Instead of the full nine months, we're compressed versions of our kind of curriculum within organisations, other NGOs, or different settings. I'd say end to end; we've been running for four years. There have been about 500 participants through the programme. We have achieved an 85 % job placement rate. And I must just add that we also have about, is it a 90 % throughput rate? In other words, is that correct? So, 90 % of the kids who start our programme finish. We are highly present and supportive in so many different ways. It's not just a go online and do e-learning. There's live coaching from professional sales coaches. There's a sales boot camp as part of our curriculum. Everyone needs to learn how to sell. We firmly believe that this programme could be applied to anybody. You don't need to have a degree or a matric or anything.

But honestly, even for older people wanting to re-skill, what we're trying to build here are skills for the 21st century, which means that you really have to have resilience and be adaptive, know how to ask the right questions, and know how to solve problems. Yeah, we have an 85 % job placement rate, and they're not necessarily in the lowest level of job.

People are getting jobs as project managers. They're getting jobs as researchers. Some have even gotten job in banks, which has been interesting because they don't have degrees. Well, let me not say jobs, but contracts. So, where our graduates end up is always quite amazing. Many start their own businesses or have already got their own businesses going, and then they... accelerate exponentially through D-Lab. I think maybe if I could say in terms of recruitment, I think it might be interesting, Yaya, if you describe our recruitment process, because we're very hands-on and this is about experience, not theory.

Ayanda Orrai (09:50.247)

Yes, I mean, when we try to recruit students, we always talk about looking for shining eyes. So, we always look for the people who will stand out, show up, participate, and show potential. So, in the first phase of recruitment, we have students send through their applications and application forms. They fill in a short assessment that just gets to know them better and their capabilities in terms of what they can do. 

The reality is that most of our students don't use English as their first language. However, that's the language that we use in the programme. So, in the first stage, we have them fill in those forms, and then we go to the centre person. We go through phase two, where we now have them work in different groups to solve different programmes at the centre. This is where we look at how they interact with people that haven't met before and how they're able to work in groups and collaborate effectively. And then we're also looking at their thinking. Can they come up with creative ideas? How do they look at things? What is their point of view? Are they able to think out of the box? 

And then from that stage, we look at the shining eyes again and then say, these are the people that would go through to phase three, which is the interview phase, where we now sit down with them, get to know them better and ask them questions about themselves about the person what have they been through what have their experiences been in our interviews? We try and be a bit different and not just ask them questions But also just give them a few scenarios just to see how they would handle different situations that would happen in the workplace and how They can think on their feet and come up with ideas So that recruitment process has worked for us because it's helped us to be able to identify people that are interested in pushing themselves as much as they can.

Linda van Tilburg  (11:56.463)

So, shining eyes, is that real enthusiasm? Is that what you need?

Ayanda Orrai (12:02.341)

Yes, because once you join the programme, there is a lot that happens day to day. There's a lot of work and assignments, but we also have facilitators who work with the students. So, the facilitators will meet with the students once a month for 15 minutes to understand how they are coping in the programme. How is everything going? Looking at everything that you're doing in the programme, how's your family coping at home? Are they supportive? Do you have anyone that you can lean on? It's very easy to forget that these students come from different realities, which sometimes makes it difficult for them to meet or do what we want them to do. So, we also need to be cognizant of all of that. We also have mentors to which each student who goes through the D-Lab programme is assigned. 

A mentor is someone they can speak to about their career aspirations, academics, and what they want to do because many of our students don't have someone they can speak to at home. They don't have an adult to whom they can look up and have these serious conversations. So, we provide that by pairing them with the mentor. In pairing them, we look at number one, the mentor's experience, and what the mentor has done, and we look at the students with the mentor-mentee relationship benefits the mentee in terms of the network they can build with that mentor and some of the advice they can get from that mentor looking at the experience and what they've done.

Linda van Tilburg (13:46.335)

Have you had cooperation from businesses, the private sector, and the government on this?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (13:54.35)

We have had a lot of participation from great businesses who do several things with us. Some are funders. We also work with various donor organisations, not just in the corporate space but also in trusts. We've been supported by several companies from their sort of supply development funds. So that's something we are seeking to scale D-Lab further. We want to grow it nationally. We have a great demand to grow it nationally. At the same time, we rely on business, our interaction with them, and the fact that many of us in the D-Lab teamwork in the corporate space. We want the programme to be demand-driven, so we're always very curious to work with businesses to expose our curriculum, to get them involved in what we call a curriculum council, to say, are we producing that which you need, and do you want to a stab at helping us to define that.

So, we have very interesting conversations with different kinds of people and organizations to try to keep refining our curriculum. It has to change so often, given the changing pace of the world. But we also are always looking for mentors, and we typically are looking for people who are in their careers in whatever form, it doesn't have to be corporate, but for five years or so, and who want to build a relationship with another human being who happens to be a young South African. What we see through the mentorship journey is astonishing in terms of not only the academics and the curriculum, just people from different places finding each other and saying, let's help, let's do this together. As Ayanda mentioned, not just theoretically but also to help with my network, give you access, introduce you to people, and help you walk the journey. It's astonishing what can happen.

 Linda van Tilburg (15:48.483)

You mentioned scaling up. Where are you now that you say you want to go nationally? Where are you situated?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (16:04.376)

Currently, we have centres that we partner with. In other words, we run cohorts in Mpumalanga and Thembalethu Township just outside of George. We've been running for several years in these places. Also, the Sci-Bono Science Museum in Newtown is one of our partners. So, we run a programme based there. That programme is IT-focused because the participants are recruited from previous Sci-Bono alumni.

These kids have successfully gone through those technical programmes but have not found jobs. So, we allow them to apply for a D-Lab. Then we run a fairly technically orientated programme emphasising using AI to build software, analyse data, etc. And let me just say we are not training for a particular role. We're not trying to train programmers or data scientists. We're trying to train thinkers, problem solvers, and communicators, but we are. We think the skill of the 21st century is, as we said, to solve complex problems well with others.

Linda van Tilburg (17:26.786)

So, it doesn't have to be in a centre because it's virtual, right?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (17:26.872)

Yes, we've run programmes that were not centre-based, where kids could apply for them from anywhere in the country. Unfortunately, load shedding hit us badly and made it untenable to try and run an online programme. Our students were going to KFCs to do their work and meet with the coaches online. It wasn't easy. We decided to work with centres to give them a place to be, but we've had such demand. More broadly, we are also opening what we call our open cohorts, which is for anyone to apply. They just need to have their internet access.

Linda van Tilburg (18:12.14)

Can you give us a case study of somebody who went through this programme and where they are now?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (18:21.218)

Well, Yaya, I'd love you to. I don't know if you asked for Linda, but I'd love you to answer that. Okay, great. I'm curious to hear who you'll pick, so go for it.

Ayanda Orrai (18:31.699)

I'm trying to think, and it's so tough because there are so many of them whose stories are inspiring. But one that always sticks with me is a student we had as part of the 2022 cohort. This was our very first pilot cohort. Her name is Nomfundo Mazibuko.

I think she stands out for me because while she was in the programme, we used to fight a lot with her because we would feel like, okay, you need to do this better. You need to do this more and to work through the programme. Her confidence grew, and since she finished the programme, she has been working for the Leap Institute since then, so I think it's a testament to how lives can change. She has said this to us herself and said that her life has changed because now she can provide for her family. She's now able to participate as an adult, as we call it, in the family unit, which is always very inspiring that we don't realize that what we're doing is impacting and changing people's lives.

 Linda van Tilburg (19:48.652)

Alison, do you want to also mention somebody else?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (19:52.174)

I would love to. As I understand it, I find so many, and all of them are mesmerizing. But I will shout out to Sbonakaliso Kunene, who was also in our first cohort and, if I can say, is now one of my favourite people in the world. And Sbona had been unemployed for 11 years, having matriculated. I think he began studying and, for various reasons, couldn't continue. He is trying to run his own business. He taught himself coding all while living with his mom and Alex. For 11 years, he couldn't find work or get his businesses going. He came into the programme. I feel like his energy, presence, and the way he held the programme with us in that first cohort and our pilot make him almost like a co-founder. He's now working in a very, very complex and senior position in the technology space. And he's been there since he left the D-Lab programme. And I must also add, on occasion, when I've been asked to speak on topics related to something like AI, which I do, I've had Sbonakaliso Kunene join me and co-present. And it's a wonder.

Linda van Tilburg (21:13.351)

These are such inspiring stories. Before we end, is there anything else you want to add?

Alison Del Fabbro Jacobson (21:18.402)

No, mean, yes, I mean, we would love people to reach out. We want support. We want to bring other people into this. We want to share what we're doing. I think you can hear we're really excited about the programme and the mission. So, in some form or another, come and help fund us, provide mentorship, and even give access to our students for site visits in different businesses so that we can expose them to what the world of work looks like. So, there are many ways to get involved. Visit our website. Find us on LinkedIn. It's d-lab.co.za.