Ubuntu “I am because we are” is one of the most cited and least applied concepts in South African public life. It appears in mission statements, funding applications and political speeches. It rarely appears in business models.
At Innovalanga, we have tried to do something different: to build an organisation whose structure, programmes and partnerships are genuinely shaped by this principle rather than simply decorated with it. This post is an honest account of what that looks like in practice and where it is still a work in progress.
What Ubuntu Actually Demands of an Innovation Organisation
An innovation organisation that takes Ubuntu seriously cannot simply extract talent from a community and channel it somewhere else. It cannot run a programme that produces skilled graduates who then leave for Johannesburg or Cape Town, leaving the community no better off than before.
Ubuntu demands reciprocity. It demands that the organisation is genuinely of the community it serves not just geographically located near it.
For us, that has meant making several choices that are not always the commercially convenient ones:
Building in Standerton, not Johannesburg
Our flagship facility is in Meyerville, Standerton not in a major metro with easier access to funders, partners and talent. We made this choice deliberately. The people we exist to serve live here. If we are not here, we are not serving them.
Community access points, not just a flagship
The Digital Centre in Sakhile and the SAYEC CIE partnership exist because we recognised that a flagship facility in Meyerville is still inaccessible to many of the people we most want to reach. Ubuntu demanded that we go to them, not wait for them to come to us.
Designing for inclusion, not as an afterthought
Youth, women, persons living with disabilities, entrepreneurs from farm and mining communities these are not special categories we accommodate. They are the starting point of our programme design. Every operational decision from transport support to online learning options to financial assistance is made with their access needs in mind.
“Ubuntu demands reciprocity. The organisation must be genuinely of the community it serves not just geographically located near it.”
Where It Gets Hard
Honesty requires acknowledging the tensions.
Building in a township is harder than building in Sandton. Connectivity is less reliable. Supply chains are longer. Infrastructure challenges are real. The operational cost of genuine inclusion transport support, data allowances, flexible scheduling is higher than the cost of running an exclusive programme for people who already have every advantage.
It is also harder to attract certain types of funding when your model prioritises community inclusion over headline outputs. Some funders want to see numbers cohort sizes, qualification rates, graduate salaries that are easier to achieve when you select only the most advantaged applicants.
We do not do that. We believe the harder work produces the more meaningful outcomes and that the harder outcomes are the ones South Africa actually needs.
What This Means for Participants
If you join an Innovalanga programme, you are not just accessing training. You are joining an ecosystem that is built on the principle that your success is connected to the success of the people around you.
The mentorship relationships, the peer learning communities, the alumni network we are building these are not soft benefits. They are the core of what we are doing.
We are not building a production line for individual talent. We are building a community of innovators who lift each other.
An Invitation
Ubuntu is not a destination. It is a practice something you have to keep choosing, especially when it is inconvenient.
We are choosing it. And we are inviting you to be part of it.
