Rapelang Rabana is a serial entrepreneur from Botswana with a bachelor’s degree (Hons) in Business Science with a specialisation in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town. Her most recent venture is Rekindle Learning: a South African online e-learning platform that empowers and enhances people’s digital skill sets in today’s ever-changing workplace. Rabana founded Rekindle in 2014 to provide the tools and solutions needed to close South Africa’s digital workforce gap by using digital technologies. Her upskilling and reskilling methodology focuses on employees transformation with digital skills while orienting companies’ mindset in creating a more inclusive and dynamic work environment.
Prior to founding Rekindle, in 2006, Rabana co-founded Yeigo, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) mobile application that became South Africa’s first free VoIP mobile service provider6. As a result, Telfree, a South African next-generation mobile network operator, acquired a majority stake in Yeigo in 2009. Rabana, a talented and innovative researcher and developer, was appointed as Telfree’s Research and Development Leader until her departure in 2012.
Rabana also co-founded FFWD Innovation in 2021, with her vast technological and entrepreneurial experience and tenure as BCX Chief Digital Officer to assist companies in reaching their full technological and business potential. “The goal should be to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that no activities are duplicated. It should be about breaking down barriers and making everything transparent, rather than tying employees up in red tape”, says Rabana.
Rabana’s advanced concepts and forward-thinking have led to numerous accolades, keynote forums, and media features such as; Oprah Magazine’s O Power List (2012), Forbes’s 30 under 30 (2013), Entrepreneur for the World by the World Entrepreneurship Forum (2014), Gartner Symposium (2015), Unique Speaker Bureau (2019), 100 Young Global Leaders (2017) by the World Economic Forum, the cover of Forbes Africa magazine, being selected as a FastCompany Maverick, and Ambassador and Juror for the United Nations World Summit Awards.
She is a system-oriented thinker with an entrepreneurial mindset, a social-techno investor in companies, technology, and people, and a never-ending desire to empower society to thrive in the great game of global digital transformation. Rapelang Rabana puts it succinctly: “At its core, a resilient and adaptable organisation must also be a learning organisation, because to move fast, you must learn fast”.
