You are invited to explore the battle between GovChat and WhatsApp at the launch of Eldrid …

The fight between GovChat vs WhatsApp (Meta) will be discussed in Cape Town during the book launch of ‘The Silicon Empire vs Social Impact: The David & Goliath Battle by Eldrid Jordaan on September 15.  In the early months of 2020, when the world stopped moving, South Africa faced a challenge that was as immediate as it was overwhelming: how to get help, quickly and directly, to the people who needed it most. Social grants, the lifeline for millions, were suddenly inaccessible in the usual way. The problem wasn’t money or even policy. The problem was logistics. How do you keep people safe and at the same time put food on their tables? Enter Eldrid Jordaan. Jordaan wasn’t a politician, nor was he a Silicon Valley wunderkind. He was a connector, someone who believed technology could be made humble enough to serve ordinary people. His platform, “GovChat”, was an elegant solution to a complex problem: take an interface that almost everyone in South Africa already used, WhatsApp and turn it into a channel for government services. No new app. No steep learning curve. Just a familiar green screen on a phone. For a while, it worked brilliantly. Citizens registered. Government
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