Y
ou know you’ve made it when the
likes of Oprah Winfrey, CNN and
Forbes start paying you lip service.
Rapelang Rabana is one of few who
can say they’ve been featured by all
the media platforms listed above. As things are,
she is a young, motivated woman who does not
let fear and doubt prevent her from redefining the
status quo.
With a talent for recognising gaps in the market
and capitalising on it, in 2013 she started ‘Rekindle
Learning’ after leaving Yeigo Communications.
‘Rekindle’ is a mobile learning aid helping
students study in bite-size chunks to ensure
effective retention of information. Rabanae
states, “In studying, the key to retention is not in
once off retrieval but repeated retrieval. “
Tell us a bit about who you are and where you’re
from.
I was born in Botswana where I spent the first
few years of my life. I finished my primary and
secondary school in Johannesburg and then
went to study at University of Cape Town and
continued to live in Cape Town. My parents
are both remarkable people of exceptional
achievement despite a very poor upbringing.
My father qualified as a professional Architect
(while my mother became an Electrical Engineer.
They have taught me the value of hard work and
excellence and how that can take you anywhere
you want to go.
After being at the forefront of Yeigo, what have
you learned and how as it affected your venture
concerning ‘Rekindle’?
I have learned that young, local entrepreneurs
and innovators play a huge role in delivering
solutions for the African continent, and that
the typical assumptions that technologies will
always come from the West are deeply flawed.
Indigenous ideas are contextually relevant - they
are created by people who live the experience
and just observe.
What inspired you to become such a confident
speaker and a fierce business woman?
The extraordinary privilege of seeing ideas you
have worked on manifested into reality, after it
all started with just a thought. It always makes
me smile, that all I had in the beginning was a
thought – and how incredibly powerful human
thought, the imagination and discipline can be,
when backed by persistence.
Since starting Rekindle, have there been any
challenges along the way?
The challenges at the beginning of every new
start-up are different but also much the same.
You have a general idea of where you want to
go and you have to take a number of small ste 0