Origins and History
Ungana-Afrika has been active in Southern Africa since 2003. In an interview, co-founder Rudi von Staden (29) said the organisation "was formed as a partnership with the student organization then called AIESEC (a French acronym, for an association of students interested in economics), and OSISA (the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa)." He continued to say "There were then some seven AIESEC 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 United States, Toni Eliasz of Finland and myself."
During its initial year as an AIESEC and OSISA project, Ungana-Afrika continued to evaluate and implement support models for Southern Africa's development community, including a relatively new mobile consulting and support method called eRiding. In 2004, acknowledging the need for a sustainable nonprofit technology support hub in Southern Africa, Ungana-Afrika formally registered as a non-profit organisation and moved to an office in Pretoria, South Africa.
In recent years, Ungana-Afrika has increased its focus on capacity building and toolkit development for ICT support providers and the ICT support community. However, it still continues to deliver support and training directly to nonprofit and community service organizations in Southern Africa.
To date, Ungana-Afrika has received a number of national and international awards including an APC member award for "best initiative promoting the strategic use of ICTs for social change" and a Dirk Award for "extraordinary contributions to the nonprofit and international NGO technology communities".
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