The South African educational sector opens the way
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These statements are reflective of the geography of our lives, where places, things and cultural products are divided between what we are allowed to have and do and what we are not allowed to experience or share.
But how necessary is it to operate in this strictly dual environment that largely diminishes action and choice to two absolutes? With the Open Business Model project we are aiming to illustrate that there are more than two choices available to both creators and consumers of things, places and cultural products; that it is possible to offer ‘open content’ without having to compromise the business idea or its financial sustainability.
In South Africa, the value of open content is most readily recognized within the educational sector. Roleplayers from both the public and private sectors and civil society are involved in various projects aimed at delivering education through ICT to South African youth (and often further afield into other regions of Africa as well). The actors involved in these initiatives understand that the benefit for the project is not necessarily a financial one: the bigger spin-off is to create a sustainable society through education by equipping young people with the skills to actively contribute to South Africa’s economy.
Does this mean that financial benefit takes second place? Are stakeholders within the South African educational sector putting their social consciences above financial sustainability?
And if so, does this mean that funding agencies will have to continue funding projects for the next decade? And what of the stakeholders that choose to keep their content ‘closed’ in order to make a profit? Who are they selling content to, and are their models any more successful in the long term than ‘open content’ providers who currently rely on funding?
To begin finding out answers to the above questions, the Commons-sense programme at the LINK Centre, Wits University, has investigated some of the leading players in the educational sector to find out who provides (and distributes) open content and who operates on a commercial basis. We plotted our findings on a continuum, starting from the producers (and disseminators) of open content, moving towards a ‘closed’ environment where content is available only via subscription. Interestingly, we have found that many projects consist of a number of diverse partnerships, where some ‘closed’ commercial providers actually provide content for an open-content project, or where two partners with different focuses have found shared opportunities to create other projects. In these situations, the notions of ‘open’ and ‘financial sustainability’ become multi-layered. It is within these projects with their many facets and networks, that opportunities exist for South African entrepreneurs who wish to make business out of open content.
The Commons-sense case studies will attempt to map out the relationships amongst those who supply, create and distribute content, and hopes to tease out answers to what makes for a successful open-content project in South Africa, and where the ‘gaps’ may be that entrepreneurs and creators can fill to their advantage. Watch this space!