Internet Solutions (IS), a leading African converged communications service provider, has been at the forefront of the local industry’s development since the dawn of the internet in South Africa.  With an ethos of boundless possibility in mind, IS has launched a new initiative called IS Labs to create an ideas incubator to identify great projects that need to be supported either with money or resources to improve the state of the South African Internet.

Why is this necessary?
To grow the South African internet by promoting, supporting and incubating a culture of pioneering innovation in the local online community.

Fair enough… But why should I care?
To keep our hard earned money in the country! One of the biggest costs incurred when your average South African is kicking around the internet is the international bandwidth they use. The cost of fetching a packet from an international site is much higher that of fetching it from a local one, and it’s the end user that eventually foots the bill for those big international fiber pipes. That’s a lot of money not staying in the country. And a lot of time users spend waiting for pages to load. Better and more relevant Internet services hosted in South Africa will mean a faster, cheaper and more interesting experience for all of us here. Even better, we’d like to get more internet users from overseas visiting sites based in South Africa, because that allows our telecoms operators to negotiate better interconnect deals on international bandwidth.

Why now?
Because we can, and because we must. The nature of the digital divide is that as it grows larger, it grows faster. We can’t wait for something to happen, we must all take responsibility. Also, South Africans are often amazingly pioneering, and very skilled – businesses need to support innovators more. We can make this happen – and with IS Labs we’re opening the door to other people who want to make the South African internet a better place.

What kind of ideas are we looking for?
As long as the idea is workable, practical and helps make the South African internet a better place, we are interested. It can be a full-blown business proposal or just a good concept that needs to be developed further. We are interested in all ideas – anything from an e-commerce idea, to a social media concept, to a better way to route traffic or deal with spam. Literally anything that help make .co.za a more interesting and fun place to be.

How will we find the good ideas?
By community vote. The IS Labs website (http://www.islabs.co.za) is a social media platform where you can post and comment on ideas, as well as vote other people’s proposals. Using a Digg-like system, the widely supported ideas will rise to the top of pile, with the best then being evaluated by a team at IS and, where viable, put into incubation.

But what if my idea is really good, and I want to keep it secret?
The alternative to posting your idea is to send through the proposal directly to all@islabs.co.za. (unless it’s a full business plan with budgets and lots of details, we really think that the site is the best way to go.)

Who evaluates ideas?
The team is made up of a team of three IS people.
Jeff Fletcher, a technology and new business development expert
Greg de Chasteauneuf, a technical guru
Justin Spratt, a business and management brain

And then what?
Chosen proposals will be presented to a panel of senior IS managers and independent advisors.  If the concept gets the green light then IS labs will work with the idea’s originators to develop a support plan, which could include anything from business and technical mentorship, to hosting and internet access facilities and potentially introductory funding (as an incubator, the funding will be aimed at producing a validation prototype, so it will typically cover salary and expenses for two developers working full time for about two months).

What’s the catch?
The support from IS Labs will have as little onerous conditions as possible. If, after the agreed period, the idea doesn’t fly then we all go our separate ways. No payback required. But, if the idea does fly then IS labs gets the right for first refusal.

Be part of this SA internet revolution and register to submit your idea today!