Out of college, at a time when most young people would like just to have a good time, Rudi von Staden (27) is onto something very different. He believes his tech skills can really make a difference to those working for social change in southern Africa. And his commitment shows...

At Africa Source 2, a camp held in Uganda in early 2006 aimed at sharing Free Software skills with non-profit organisations, Rudy worked late into the night and began early the next morning, setting arrangements in place. He shares his vision and mission with us:

Q: Rudy, could you begin by telling us something about your goals?

Fine. I studied my B.Sc at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town, South Africa. I guess that I always saw technology as something which to apply (in working towards solutions that society needs).

Application of technology was always more appealing to me than developing the technology. And I wanted to do something that was contributing to the community, once I left university, and while I was still young and could take risks.

Q: Tell us something about your organisation. How did Ungana-Afrika come about?

It was formed as a partnership with the student organisation then called AIESEC (a French acronym, for an association of students interested in economics), and OSISA (the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa). AISEC had the goal of creating cultural exchange between students from different countries. They have 80,000 members around the world, and trying and get exchanges between them... mostly creating opportunities for foreign students in local universities.

There were then some seven AISEC members around the world, and they all came together in Johannesburg in 2003, with the objective of improving the technology capacity in NGOs in Southern Africa. There's still three of us of the initial seven who are still there -- Ryan Jacobs from the US, Toni Eliasz of Finland and myself.

Currently, there are five of us within Ungana Afrika, but several additional members have come and gone over the three years that's we've been operating.

Q: What does 'Ungana' signify?

When the Ungana-Afrika project was being started, we wanted a term that was not Western, and one that would appeal to an African audience. So we settled on a Swahili word, which means connecting, but in the sense of bringing together.

Q: What are your priorities? How have they developed?

In the beginning, our understanding of the NGO sector was fairly limited. We all came from university, so we didn't have much of an understanding of what was needed on the ground. So, initially, we split into pairs, and each spent some time in two countries in Southern Africa -- Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho and Mozambique.

In each country, we tried to have as big an impact as we could in the six months the project was scheduled to run.

But there were big issues in terms of having an impact in such a short time. It was very difficult to do so. So we kind of re-grouped, and we agreed that it was much more important to have projects that were sustained over time. And that short time projects were quite limited in have a lasting impact.

eRiders, or Circuit Riders, are travelling technology consultants. These technology assistance providers who travel to small non-profit organizations in the not-for-profit sector to troubleshoot or support particular technology needs in those organizations. See more about eRiding at http://www.tacticaltech.org/eriding

We decided to focus more on creating sustainable eRider projects. We had taken the eRider model from the start. We had good communications with the international eRider network -- www.eriders.net -- who helped us a great deal when we were starting out, particularly Teresa Crawford.

But when we were starting out we had very few resources to help us. So we started with our main focus on creating resources for others to be able to start technology support projects for NGOs.

Q: Looking back, what do you count among your your achievements?

I would say that the achievements have definitely been in focussing not only on the projects that we were implementing, but also in ways to make those projects scalable. So that others could implement similar projects.

Also, we decided to focus on supporting networks of organisations, rather than individual rganisations. This was quite a successful approach to take.

Q: Has the eRiding model been successful in Africa?

It's really encouraging to see, specially recently, the levels to which eRiding is actually catching on in Africa. There are projects starting in West Africa. And in Zambia. Interest is also being shown from a few other countries, which is promising.

Q: If you had a chance to do things all over again, what would you have done differently this time round?

I would probably try to find local champions within the networks. Finding effective eRiders is a lot more than a challenge than finding projects, or finding networks for eRiders to be effective.

It's very difficult to find people who are both technologically skilled and with an understanding of the NGO community, and with a passion to serve that community as well.

Q: One question many readers would probably have: how are the needs of a non-profit or non-governmental organisation different from those of any other similar-sized organisation?

The NGO community is very much focussed on, shall we say, a social mandate. Their bottom line is connected to community-outcomes, mission-focussed objectives. On the other hand, the commercial world has got a financial bottom-line.

So, communication is a key factor for successful engagement with an NGO. It's both a case of communicating well with an NGO, and communication is a big need that they have too.

Trust is also a very important aspect in your relationship with an NGO. You have to earn their trust. And, you need to show them that their mission is also your mission. That you are motivated by the same things they are; and that you are here to help them do what they are already doing better.

Q: What have been your biggest challenges while working with non-profits and NGOs?

Some of the biggest challenges have been the fact that building sustainable projects is very challenging. And so, we've had situations where we find a very good environment to create an eRiding project, but we haven't been able to get funding to support that project. Sometimes, a lot of work goes into creating relationships that we then cannot follow up.

It's been challenging to find eRiders, people who are sufficiently motivated to build a technology capacity of NGOs.

Also, it can be an expensive model, because very often there's high transport cost. Of course, there are different ways of building eRider models, where they can be located within a local community or supporting networks that are regionally more distributed. If the organisations being supported are very far apart, then ongoing support becoming challenging.

Q: What's the structure of Ungana-Afrika like?

Our office is located in Pretoria, but one of our colleagues is actively involved in an eRiding project in Mpulanga province in the north-east of South Africa.

Angel Kgokolo spends much of her time travelling between five community radio stations. Tshepo Thlaku is currently focussed on providing Angel with management support, and is also organising NGO tech-support workshops in Southern Africa.

Ryan Jacobs is working with a network of HIV/AIDS support organisations in (the east African former Portuguese colony of) Mozambique, to develop a technology support strategy for them. And Toni Eliasz is our executive director, providing overall management responsibility. I am a project manager -- Ryan and I share the same title -- currently working with a network of legal support organisations in central South Africa. Also, we work to develop a technology support strategy for them. And the new project I'm working is to look at ways that students can be used effectively to provide tech support to NGOs.

Q: What's the average age of people in your organisation?

I would say it's probably about 27.

Q: On the issue of non-profits taking to Free/Libre and Open Source Software, what do you see as challenges and potential?

I think that GNU/Linux can have a big role to play (in non-profits). There are a lot of positive implications for NGOs implementing GNU/Linux. Largely because it empowers them in ways proprietary software does not.

But unless there's an effective tech support environment and adequate training, they can be left floundering while taking to GNU/Linux.