[AfrICANN-discuss] South African wins ITU award

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

http://www.screenafrica.com/page/news/industry/1091180-South-African-wins-ITU-award

South African wins ITU award
Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:40

Cape Town’s Hajra Cassim is a winner in the Not-For-Profit Digital
Innovators Award at ITU Telecom World 2011, out of 45 finalists from 22
countries around the world.

Held at the end of October in Geneva, Switzerland, Telecom World is one of
the globe’s most important ICT events, brought together by The United
Nation’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Cassim, a trainee director on the Film Industry Learner Mentorship
(F.I.L.M.) MICT Seta Sallywood Project, won 8 500 Swiss Francs (roughly R75
000) for pitching the mobile-content-generation showmemobi model to an
international investment panel, global leaders in technology, and a huge
international audience via the internet.

At Telecom World, Cassim met the likes of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon;
Carlos Slim Helú, one of the richest men in the world; and ITU
Secretary-General, Hamadoun I. Touré

showmemobi is the Sallywood Project’s own mobile content channel on the
Bozza mobile content platform or mobihood (mobile neighbourhood), launching
at the end of November 2011.

Five-minute mobi-sodes of edutainment are written and produced by trainees
on the Sallywood Project, a MICT SETA-funded skills programme created by
F.I.L.M. to empower young media entrepreneurs.

“Our showmemobi pitch fortuitously captured the essence of the entire
conference, that captivating content essentially drives the uptake of
technology as the channel attracts more and more users,” says Cassim, a
former Bandwidth Barn graduate. “I love ICT and I love making movies, so
it’s the perfect way to marry my passions.”

In South Africa, there is over 50% youth unemployment. “Six months ago, I
was part of that statistic,” says Cassim, a single mother of a
four-year-old boy. “Through showmemobi, we want to empower people who are
marginalised to tell and sell stories through film electronic and digital
media; stories that touch and transform lives and in the process, create
employment for emerging micro-entrepreneurs who generate the content.”

The average feature film costs R5m in South Africa. “Mobile jumps the
traditional barriers to entry and allows us to make films, reach an
audience and interact with them in an ongoing way via mobile,” says Cassim.
“It would take me forever to direct a feature, but now in six months I can
direct my own mobile series.”
Using Nollywood’s $2bn annual industry as an example, she believes the key
is to make proudly local content in the local vernacular. “We have 11
official languages in South Africa. I’m Indian, so mobile allows me to make
films in Hindu or Urdu, which - depending on your content - can be
hyper-localised and very niche, or totally generic.”

Cassim is currently developing her first series for showmemobi: Cape Town
in Joburg, which follows the journey of a rural woman who inherits the
Joburg Bar on Long Street. She plans to shoot the five-minute mobi-sodes on
her new Blackberry. “It’s mobile for mobi,” she says.

F.I.L.M. project director Seton Bailey accompanied Cassim to Geneva. He
says the prize money is going to buy production equipment for F.I.L.M. and
showmemobi. He adds that meeting and working with heads of state and other
world leaders was life-changing. “Apart from the incredible contacts, we
now have a far clearer understanding of how to pitch the huge benefits of
our not-for-profit showmemobi mobile-content-generation project to venture
capitalists, angel investors and the world,” says Bailey. “Special thanks
to the MICT Seta and ITU for laying the foundations for our future…”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20111109/97c8664b/attachment.htm