CIVICUS speaks with Rene Parker, Board Chair of AfriLabs and Co-founder and Director of RLabs, about how young people in Africa are driving change through innovation, entrepreneurship and technology.

RLabs, a Cape Town-based social enterprise, has become a global movement empowering young people, women and communities across 24 countries. Through digital skills training, business incubation and access to funding, RLabs helps young people turn ideas into livelihoods, create jobs and tackle local challenges. AfriLabs, a pan-African network of over 500 innovation hubs, promotes collaboration between businesses, civil society and governments.

What inspired you to create RLabs, and what kind of work do you do?

RLabs was born 16 years ago in Cape Town as a social enterprise with a simple idea: build people first, so they can build businesses and create change in their communities. We run an academy that offers digital skills training for young people, including coding and web design. We support entrepreneurs through incubation and acceleration programmes: they come with ideas, we test them and once we validate them, we help them scale their projects with mentorship and funding. This empowers people economically, creates jobs and unlocks further investment from those looking to back innovators across Africa.

While RLabs is a non-profit, we also have a for-profit arm, RLabs Group, which generates income through consulting for development agencies and investing in startups. This allows us to fund our programmes, reinvest in communities and focus on creating sustainable livelihoods.

Over the years, RLabs has expanded to 24 countries, mainly in Africa but also in the UK and USA, and created innovations such as Zlto, a virtual currency that rewards young people for doing good. We understand that if we want to drive systemic change, we can’t do it alone. That’s why we joined networks such as Ashoka, the World Economic Forum and the Young African Leaders Initiative. We connect communities with corporations and governments with a clear mission in mind: making hope contagious.

What are the challenges of being a young African person today?

Young people want to be seen, heard and taken seriously. Many are frustrated and tired of empty promises and the lack of opportunities. They are educated, ambitious and love their countries and want to see them get better, but are often ignored by those in power.

During Generation Z-led protests in Kenya last year, I spoke with a young woman who said she was marching because her grandmother and aunt couldn’t. This shows the heart of the issue: young people want to belong to something bigger than themselves and make a difference.

Our role is to listen and create spaces where young people can lead and design their own solutions. Too often, adults and young people speak past each other. We need to help them find common ground because most of the time they have the same goals.

What are the biggest barriers for young innovators on the African continent?

Connectivity and access to funding are still two major challenges. Many communities don’t have reliable electricity, internet or even a physical address, and people often rely on basic phones because of the frequent power cuts. Yet innovation doesn’t always require advanced technology and can happen even under these conditions. It’s a matter of finding creative, practical solutions to real problems.

In Tanzania, for example, street children come to our lab for shelter until they save enough to rent a room and start small businesses. It’s not a tech-based innovation, but it changes lives by helping people move off the streets.

At the same time, limited access to capital holds many people back from starting a business. We try to bridge that gap by offering digital training, funding and mentorship. This empowers entrepreneurs who lack social networks or family support to build sustainable livelihoods and drive community change.

Do you see opportunities for young people in AI?

Definitely. AI has huge potential, but we first need to build awareness and readiness. People need to understand what AI is and how to use it responsibly. Just like in the early days of the internet, when people were afraid to share their data online, there’s a lot of fear around AI now. But we can’t avoid it. We need to learn how to use it and make it work for us.

With the right support, AI can open many doors across Africa. In our incubator programmes, we bring together AI experts and innovators, and the results are amazing. Some of our young entrepreneurs are already creating powerful AI solutions in areas like farming and healthcare.

What more could be done to support innovation in Africa?

Governments, companies and civil society need to talk to each other and work together. Too often they run similar programmes separately, which limits their impact. If they joined forces, the results would be much stronger.

At AfriLabs, which connects over 500 innovation hubs in 53 countries, we try to build those bridges and share resources. Our annual gatherings, like the recent one in Nairobi, bring together entrepreneurs, governments, investors and corporations. What makes these meetings powerful is that we talk with communities, not about them. At the end, people leave with clear next steps, knowing exactly what they can do to make real change happen back home.

Rene spoke at this year’s Trust Conference, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s annual flagship forum, on the role of corporate AI adoption in building a more inclusive global economy. Subscribe to the Trust Conference YouTube channel here and be the first to watch her speech in full.