Technology Support and Education for LGBTQ African NGOs

In this episode of OutBüro Voices featuring LGBTQ professionals, entrepreneurs, and community leaders from around the world, host Dennis Velco chats with Jaco Kleynhans is a South African based technology business owner, NijaCo, and founder of the NGO A Community of Humans that provides technology support and training to other LGBTQ NGOs throughout Africa.

In Jaco's early career he was in the South African Air Force where he was assigned a special project to learn web development and create websites for various South African Air Force divisions. He fell in love with web and software development. After his Air Form term, he launched his own technology and software development company NinjaCo. Working professionally in the space he realizes that LGBTQ NGOs in Africa lacked the support and skills they need to be successful.

So, with passion and vigor, he created the NGO A Community of Humans to provide technology support and training for other LGBTQ NGOs throughout all of Africa. One of the most frequently requested support is to create reporting dashboard to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of what the LGBTQ NGOs provide to their served communities. This reporting is critical in obtaining and maintaining grants.  The dashboards might include if the NGO is medically focused such as HIV treatment and prevention, things like, how many patients are seen, treated, followed up with, the efficacy of treatment, and so forth. Grant providers want to be certain that the funds they are providing is being used appropriately and making a real difference.

Jaco and his A Community of Humans NGO have created partnerships with global leading software and hardware companies to provide the LGBTQ NGOs with the tools they need to operate and be effective in their communities.  It's not just enough to provide the tools, the LGBTQ NGO management, and team members also need to know how to use them.  So Jaco, teamed up with those providers to provide training and education.  As if that wasn't enough, Jaco has paid attention to the technology job market and like many reports and studies show, there is a global deficit of trained and certified technology professionals to fill all the talent needs spanning from small businesses, NGOs, and large corporations.  Jaco has expanded the training and education to include providing it to members of the community in where the LGBTQ NGOs he already supports are located. The technology partners provide the hardware and software. The LGBTQ NGOs provide the classroom space. A Community of Humans provides the tables, chairs, and in-person instructors to lead the students through the content providing guidance and the support the students need. Jaco even reached out to an internet provider to provide the students with internet access so that they can access all the training content online and perform their homework out of the classroom.

Jaco also reached out to the school that he attended nearly 20 years ago and formed a partnership in where current students can internship on the A Community of Humans projects to gain real-world practical experience.  This experience will include but is not limited to, reporting dashboard development, website development, custom web, and smartphone application development, technology security, marketing, communications, strategic planning, and so much more.    Jaco is an entrepreneur and community leader who is reaching not only the LGBTQ community in Africa but cross-connecting beyond for true collaboration, community building, mentoring, skills development, and leadership development for LGBTQ NGO and youth in Africa in general.

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